The poll from Quinnipiac University gives Kasich a nine-point lead over Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald and a seven-point lead over Richard Cordray.

The survey also says 52 percent of Ohio voters approve of Kasich’s job performance, compared to 34 percent disapproval.

The poll follows last month’s survey by Quinnipiac that gave Kasich his first positive approval rating as governor.

The survey shows 60 percent of Ohio voters support the plan, with 32 percent opposed. Backing is strong among various demographics, but is strongest among lower-income Ohioans.

The plan has been shelved in the legislature, but the Governor has said he’s confident it will eventually become law.

Click the audio file above to listen to the story.

Gov. John Kasich’s office says the campaign to be formally unveiled Tuesday will employ convenience store posters, online banner ads, select social media sites and billboards in highly affected counties.

It also will include a web site with details on addiction and mental health boards in each county and a link to treatment options.

The governor is announcing the effort in partnership with the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services and the Ohio Association of County Behavioral Health Authorities.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine also has been a crusader on the issue, focusing on the elimination of “pill mills” where doctors sell illegal prescriptions.

Ohio started the year by breaking critical ground in the legal field.  In March, lawmakers heard testimony from the ultrasound images of two fetuses as evidence for the so-called “Heartbeat Bill”.   National headlines shouted “Fetus to ‘testify’!” and “Youngest witness ever!”  Many criticized the testimony as propaganda for a media circus.  Regardless of opinion, hooking up a pregnant belly to a sonogram machine in a statehouse hearing room solidified Ohio’s presence as a leader in thinking outside of the box.

Moving on to April when Ohio hit the nation’s headlines once again. This time, the focus was football with the revelation of OSU players traded sports memorabilia for tattoos.  The scandal led to Jim Tressel’s departure and some hefty fines.  Granted, the incident pales in comparison to the Penn State and Syracuse scandals that emerged later this year.  And for this OSU fans are grateful.  Yet, it did lead to an important national discussion over the state of NCAA sports and the professionalization of college athletes.  So let’s dub this news story as a fumble with a decent recovery.

While the summer months were fairly quiet, Ohio’s autumn was a doozy.  October started with a bang – literally, as Zanesville police killed nearly 50 exotic animals released by their owner. A USA Today’s headline summarizes the story: “Scary safari in Ohio ends with carnage, questions”.  Not only did the event make everyone cringe, it also garnished some not-so-favorable press for Governor Kasich, who failed to implement an order limiting the ownership of exotic pets.  It is no surprise that soon after the incident, Kasich quickly pushed fortougher rules .  But with the death of such rare animals as Bengal tigers, not even Jack Hannah’s words could help Ohio’s image.

The fall continued with not one but three big news stories. In October, reports surfaced of a breakaway Amish group cutting beards and terrorizing community members.  The story revealed a new side to hate-crimes in America, but also provided late night comics fodder for tasteless hair-cutting jokes.  Next up was the defeat of Senate Bill 5.   A year’s worth of national debate  over collective bargaining ended in one evening when voters overwhelming overturned SB5.  The result?  Another hit to the Kasich administration and a victory for minimum-wage canvassers everywhere.  Lastly, December introduced Americans to the latest Craigslist killer. Investigators say the Ohio manlured victims to their death with fake job ads.  The story alone is bad press, but then it was revealed that Ohio officials mistakenly released the the man not once but twice this past summer! I guess Ohio’s summer wasn’t that quiet after all.

And there you have it – 2011 in review.  It’s been a busy year, Ohio.  Will 2012 bring as much national coverage?  Only time will tell.  One thing is for sure: with headlines like these, I’m sure journalist everywhere are tired of typing those 4 letters: O-H-I-O.

The Republican former congressman was elected in a GOP tsunami in 2010, and has seen most of his big plans enacted.

But he also has suffered a big defeat, and has plenty of critics.

From the moment John Kasich found out he’d been elected Ohio’s 69th governor in November 2010, business and the economy have dominated his administration. With a Republican-run Ohio House and GOP-dominated Senate firmly behind him, Gov. Kasich put his proposals before lawmakers – the first of which was a plan to privatize the Department of Development using the state’s liquor profits.

“What JobsOhio is, is an organization that is going to move at the speed of business,” Kasich said.

By March, when Kasich delivered his State of the State speech, the bill creating JobsOhio had been signed into law.

“We’re going to get the best and the brightest that we can find in Ohio, people who are these entrepreneurs and job creators. They’ll be on the board. People will know what the heck they get, who they are. They’re not going to get paid any money because they don’t need any money. They’re just here to give back to Ohio because Ohio’s been good to them,” Kasich said.

Democrats complained JobsOhio was unconstitutional and tried to stop it. But at the end of the year Gov. Kasich credited JobsOhio with creating 21-thousand jobs and keeping 62,000 in Ohio. But Kasich didn’t get everything he wanted. Right after his inauguration in January, he made clear he supported changes to Ohio’s collective bargaining law.

“My personal philosophy is that I don’t like public employees striking. They got good jobs, they got high pay, they got good benefits and great retirement – what are they striking for?”

Kasich had said many times that there would be no tax increases on his watch, even with an estimated $8 billion budget deficit. So when he slashed money to schools and local governments in his two-year budget, Gov. Kasich suggested that the collective bargaining reform law known as Senate Bill 5 would help them control costs.

And when unions and Democratic activists put the law before voters in November, the Governor became the face of the unpopular plan – earning some support from the Republican Governors Association. An ad said “Gov. John Kasich has developed reasonable reforms to control the cost of government, protecting our taxpaying families and promoting job creation.) Kasich: We’re simply asking our government employees to pay their fair share.”

After Senate Bill 5 was crushed, Kasich was conciliatory, saying he felt Ohioans might have been saying “it was too much too soon.”

“My view is when people speak in a campaign like this in a referendum, you have to listen when you’re a public servant,” Kasich said as Issue 2 was being called in favor of his oppoonents.

Overall, John Kasich ends the year as an unpopular governor. A Quinnipiac poll in October had 52 percent of Ohioans disapproving of his performance in office. He’s faced protesters in many forums, from outside his office at the Statehouse, to speeches to business groups, to during the Senate Bill 5 hearings, and even during his budget unveiling and his State of the State speech.

Kasich has repeatedly said politics has no place in his administration. But his call for Ohio GOP Party chair Kevin DeWine to resign has been well-publicized, and has led to a rift within the state party. And for some of his critics, Kasich is a partisan, divisive force. But detractors and supporters alike listen when Gov. Kasich speaks.

The governor prides himself on not using prepared speeches or a teleprompter – the reliance on that device is a common dig on President Obama by his opponents, many of whom like Kasich. Without it, Gov. Kasich has said a lot of things that range from surprising to outrageous.

Speaking to a group of lobbyists, he told them “we need you on the bus, and if you’re not on the bus, we will run over you with the bus. And I’m not kidding.”

In February he asked a group of state EPA workers if they had “ever been stopped by a policeman who was an idiot?” He then told a story about being pulled over and called the police officer an idiot.

He later apologized.

He also took criticism for saying he was “waiting for the teachers unions, however, to take out full-page ads in all the major newspapers apologizing for what they said” about him during the campaign.

But Kasich might never know if that were to happen: as part of his many slaps at the media and individual reporters over the year, the Governor has said several times that he doesn’t read Ohio newspapers.

In the first part of our year-in-review series, statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen reminds us what a turbulent year it was on ohio’s budget front. Click the “play” button at the top of the page to hear Bill’s report.

That includes the Governor.

The bill from Republican State Senator Tim Schaffer of Lancaster would require those applying for cash assistance who are suspected of using drugs to submit to testing, which they’d pay for and would be reimbursed if they pass. But fellow Republican Gov. John Kasich says he has serious concerns about it.

“You’ve got to balance the taxpayers off about what’s the common sense thing to do, the right thing to do, the compassionate thing to do, what’s the right thing for the kids? But you got to come up with the right answer and I don’t think it’s real simple.”

Kasich says he’d prefer to give those who fail the tests 30 days to get clean. And he adds that federal rules may prevent the state from requiring the tests in the first place.

The state legislature in Illinois is considering an incentives package worth $275 million. That’s substantially less than the $400 million deal Ohio offered, but Governor John Kasich says he won’t get into a bidding war.

“No, a bidding war implies that there’s no ceiling. There are ceilings to what we can do. My feeling is that if the legislature in Illinois passes something special, they’re going to stay in Illinois. I don’t think they’re going to ask them to stay in Illinois, then thumb their nose at them.”

Kasich says he tried to sell Ohio as a “good place to do business” since Sears has had financial trouble in recent years.