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Former State Rep. Charlie Earl ran for secretary of state as a libertarian in 2010. He's trying his luck in the governor's race next year and acknowledges his presence in the race might tip the election to Democrat Ed FitzGerald. "So what?" he replies.

(Courtesy of Earl for Ohio)

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Meet Charlie Earl.

The libertarian candidate for governor in 2014, whom conservative Tea-Party types may rally around to spite Republican incumbent John Kasich, is a retired college instructor who also has worked in TV and radio. He lives on a farm north of Bowling Green.

Earl also is a former Republican state representative. He served from 1981 through 1984.

"I look around," Earl said this week in a telephone interview, before rattling off a list of his former General Assembly colleagues. "The governor served with me. The attorney general [Mike DeWine] served with me. Our U.S. senator, Sherrod Brown, served with me. The current speaker of the [Ohio] House of Representatives, Bill Batchelder, served with me.

"And I'm thinking," Earl deadpanned, "in 30 years, things haven't gotten better."

Tom Zawistowski, a Tea Party leader from Portage County, said conservative activists like him are sizing up Earl as their best option to make a statement against Kasich in 2014 -- even if that means tipping the election to Democrat Ed FitzGerald.

"How much does Charlie Earl have to get? Not much," Zawistowski said.

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Earl, 67, talks in a thick country drawl. He describes himself as a "peripheral" member of the Tea Party and "an evangelist for liberty." His TV and radio experience combined broadcasting with management, and he taught mass communications at Bowling Green State University and Delaware County Community College in Downingtown, Pa.

It was in Pennsylvania where Earl renounced his GOP ties. He and his wife were working on Pat Toomey's Republican primary campaign against incumbent U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who was seen as too moderate for most conservatives, the Earls included.

But then-President George W. Bush and Rick Santorum, then the state's junior but indisputably conservative U.S. senator, endorsed the ultimately victorious Specter.

"That just proved to me that party was more important than principle," Earl said.

Specter, who died in 2012, later defected to the Democrats and lost his next campaign. Earl returned to Ohio and retired from teaching in 2006. But he resumed his political career, picking up where he left off 26 years earlier by running for secretary of state.

As a libertarian, Earl collected about 5 percent of the vote in a race Republican Jon Husted won over Democrat Maryellen O'Shaughnessy by double digits. Frustrated with Kasich's support of Medicaid expansion and a severance tax for oil and gas companies, Earl began ramping up a run for governor. For his running mate he selected Sherry Clark, the founder of an independently-run conservative newspaper in Delaware, Ohio.

"There are speculators who believe John Kasich wants to be president," Earl said. "Career politicians – they're always looking for their next job. This is my last rodeo, compadre. I'm going to ride the horse, then come back home like I did last time."