SACRAMENTO — During a lifetime in politics, Phil Angelides has turned to all kinds of consultants, pollsters and advisers, many of them the best in their field.

The most relentless, however, has been his father Jerry, who continues to offer his son political advice in the form of weekly clippings and notes about leadership.

They often revolve around President Harry Truman, whose leadership style was a frequent dinner topic during Angelides’ childhood. The man born to Greek immigrants also drilled in his two sons the value of hard work and instilled in them an intensity about politics and public service.

He once required them to study President Lyndon Johnson’s national budget.

Those close to Angelides say it is that intensity that has brought him to within one election of the state’s highest office. But it also has earned him a reputation as a controlling and sometimes retaliatory micromanager, traits that at times have hurt him, even with voters of his own party.

“My parents always encouraged me to study hard, work hard, try to do the best you could do, not for the purpose of just winning,” said Angelides, the 53-year-old state treasurer. “You have an obligation to make the most of your skills so you can help the community at large.”

Angelides, the bookish Democratic challenger to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has struggled to show his lighter side in the shadow of the former movie star’s megawatt personality.

The campaign trail has provided glimpses, such as when he jumped into an air hockey game during a campaign visit to a Merced Boys & Girls Club this summer, thrusting his arms into the air and beaming when he beat his 12-year-old opponent.

Still, his campaign has tried to show that Angelides’ command of policy issues should be seen instead as a strength — and sought to downplay his reputation as too controlling.

“He does have a hand in everything,” said his wife of 24 years, Julie, who considers his passion an asset.

“Phil has a capability to think of things that I don’t think of and that most other people don’t think of — ‘Have we tried this, have you thought about this?’ I think that he definitely drives his team and he inspires his team.”

Angelides’ direct political involvement began as an undergraduate at Harvard. He joined the “Dump Nixon” movement and was soon leading student rallies and working on the 1972 campaign of rebel Republican Pete McCloskey, who sought to unseat Nixon on an anti-Vietnam War platform.

While still an undergraduate, Angelides ran for and lost a Sacramento City Council seat. He later returned to his hometown, working in the department of Housing and Community Development under former Gov. Jerry Brown, then as chief of staff for state Assemblyman Mike Roos.

He left government after just a few years to work as a land developer, befriending prominent Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopolous, a fellow Greek who is now the treasurer’s most generous benefactor. Tsakopolous and his daughter, Elena, pumped nearly $9 million into the heated June primary campaign in which Angelides defeated state Controller Steve Westly.

Angelides, now a multimillionaire, points to a development called Laguna West, a community south of Sacramento that was one of the country’s earliest so-called “smart growth” neighborhoods, as his proudest accomplishment.

His experience leading that project also shows how involved he likes to be.

Angelides decided to restart Laguna West after hearing a lecture and meeting architect Peter Calthorpe, an expert on urban redevelopment.

“It was really a radical thing. He basically threw out probably two or three years of work, guaranteed profits, and started over because he wanted to do better,” said Calthorpe, who was hired by Angelides to redesign Laguna West.

“He’s a real pragmatic idealist, which is a very unusual combination. ... He stays focused, right down to the details, but he’s quite idealistic,” Calthorpe said.

The project included parks, commercial businesses and a mix of single-family and high-density housing and was considered cutting edge at the time. Some now criticize its unimaginative home designs and lack of public transportation.

But what Angelides’ supporters see as attention to detail, others see as micromanaging. Democratic political strategist and longtime Angelides critic Garry South said the candidate has a grating personality and superior air — qualities voters can spot.

“You can’t be a snarky, thin-skinned smarty-pants,” said South, who ran Westly’s primary campaign. “Voters do not take kindly to a politician who acts consistently as if they’re smarter than the voters.”

Angelides lately has dropped references to his Harvard education, cast off his suit and tie and talked up his plan to help the middle class.

But he continues to have trouble shoring up his Democratic base and recovering from a bruising primary campaign. Angelides narrowly won the party’s nomination in June, after a primary race that drained his campaign account.

Since then, some prominent party backers, as well as state legislators, have cozied up to Schwarzenegger, whose support they will need if he wins re-election.

Prominent Hollywood Democrats such as Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and media mogul Haim Saban have endorsed Schwarzenegger.

Angelides has managed to capture the endorsement of other prominent Democrats and labor unions, due in part to his devotion to the state party he chaired from 1991 to 1993.

During races for U.S. Senate in 1992, Angelides encouraged Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, even as critics complained that two women would never win, Boxer recalled. Feinstein was running in the special election to replace Pete Wilson, who left the Senate to become governor two years earlier.

“Phil was just, ’That’s nonsense. It’s discriminatory. We never said two men could never run and win,”’ Boxer said. “So he got out there and did everything, and he would say ’I’m doing this for you Barbara and Dianne, but I’m also doing this for my daughters, because I want them to have the chance to reach their dreams.”’

His daughters — Megan, 27, Christina, 22, and Arianna, 17 — regularly travel with him and appeared in television commercials during the primary. Angelides’ wife says they help keep him sane during the relentless campaigning.

Julie Angelides plays a similar role, urging her husband to lighten up. She notes that her upbringing was far less competitive than her husband’s — politics was rarely discussed. As adults, she said they realized they had had the same piano teacher growing up.

Julie played pop. Her husband, classical.

Despite efforts to soften his image, Angelides’ trademark intensity may be needed in the final weeks before Election Day on Nov. 7.

An early Schwarzenegger ad campaign immediately after the June primary labeled Angelides as a tax-and-spend Democrat. It has continued to haunt the challenger, despite releasing a proposal he says would aid the middle class and shift some of the tax burden to the state’s wealthiest residents.

Angelides has referred to himself as the anti-Arnold and has been one of the governor’s fiercest critics since Schwarzenegger was elected nearly three years ago.

His challenge now will be to inspire voters to oust an incumbent with a superstar personality in favor of a policy wonk with passion.