Tari Renner recently announced his run for Bloomington Mayor.  Below is a partial list of things discovered on the web:

Who better to vet than his IWU students?

Lectures by Dr. Renner=Good times. What other prof leaps on the desk and runs around the room to make his points? And you gotta love his terms of endearment for members of the Republican party. 🙂

He is okay…he loves to yell and swear (which I find offensive) and pound the whiteboard. He LOOOOOVEs to go off on tangents.

Dr. Renner is the hottest man to ever stroll onto campus. Sure, his class is as hard as his beautiful abs, but his passion exudes from his beautiful mouth like water from the fountain of youth. I love this man. Best PILF ever.

See more at:  http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=176912&page=1

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A Google search found this:

Renner for Mayor

Tari Renner. for Bloomington. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

Google Translate can decipher it for you.

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And it found this:

キャッシングの多重債務

キャッシングの多重債務について、キャッシングの多重債務を予防する、キャッシングの多重債務者について、について.

Confused?  That makes 2 of us.

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Want something deeper? Excepts from an article (link below)

Had you decided on a top priority when you launched your campaign?

The first primary task was to build name recognition and support among what political scientists call the “activist public.” These are the most active segment of voters who include the county party chairs, precinct committee people, local community activists, and labor leaders as well as current and former officeholders. This was particularly important outside of McLean County. I spent the three months before the formal announcement and a majority of my time through the end of 2003 appealing to these activists throughout the district.

Our campaign’s biggest early break, however, came with the endorsement and financial contributions from Illinois’ senior U. S. Senator, Dick Durbin. This is one of the many points in the campaign where IWU’s alumni made an incredible difference. I had four former political science students working in the Senator’s office, including one who had been with him for nearly 10 years (since he served in the House). I am sure their promotion of my candidacy is why Durbin’s office contacted me to set up a meeting. After a two-hour meeting with the Senator he agreed to support me in any way he could. Within a week he personally came to the Hansen Student Center for a public rally.

This gave us a major boost statewide and in Washington. It also helped that one of our alums worked for the National Journal Hotline (the main inside-the-Beltway Web site for political junkies). He insured that the Durbin endorsement and all other Renner campaign news made it into the daily Hotline updates.

The Durbin announcement came on the heels of a fund-raiser sponsored by some very prominent Will County Democrats — including former Congressman George Sangmeister, who held the 11th district seat before Weller won it in 1994. The support of these important political leaders helped give us critical momentum at year’s end. It led to a unanimous endorsement by the Will County Democratic organization and the statewide AFL-CIO in January. These endorsements, in turn, were helpful in leveraging additional support from other groups and individuals across the district as well as in Chicago, Springfield, and Washington. Our campaign began to generate a significant political buzz among journalists, political leaders, activists, and potential donors. If Durbin and others are willing to stick their necks out to support this guy, he must have a chance and “have something on the ball.”

More from the same article:

Even though the odds were against you, toward the end of the campaign you seemed poised for an upset. Did it feel that way to you?

Renner hosted a fund-raiser in Bloomington with Barack Obama, who later won his bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate. (Photo by Marc Featherly)

Our campaign had many reasons to believe that we were within striking distance of the incumbent in the last few weeks. To varying degrees, both our polls and Weller’s showed the gap closing. We had several successful and well publicized fund-raisers, including one with U.S. Senate candidate (and eventual winner) Barack Obama in downtown Bloomington. We received some unexpected endorsements from national organizations and the local press. The Pantagraph and the Peoria Journal-Star were particularly important since they endorsed Republican George Bush for President and Democrat Tari Renner for U. S. Congress.

Exactly two weeks out from the election, the incumbent’s behavior totally changed. Mr. Weller showed up at candidate forums rather than sending surrogates. He agreed to a joint televised appearance on NBC Chicago’s City Desk and, most importantly, began mentioning me by name in ads (both radio and direct mail). “The Professor” was now “Professor Tari Renner.”

The first of the two waves of attack ads focused upon Social Security, claiming that I wanted to raise taxes and the retirement age. The second wave (during the last seven days) claimed I was for the legalization of illicit drugs. Somebody who operated a drug-legalization Web site sent us $200 and urged anyone who lived in our district to vote against the incumbent. We returned the contribution long before it was discovered by our opponent, but he seized the opportunity.

Based upon responses to our phone banking operation, the second wave of attacks was far more effective than the first. Unfortunately, we had no opportunity to respond with paid ads to the attack since our funds were virtually all committed by the last few days of the campaign. We encountered, firsthand, the incredible power of money in “getting your message out.” So, the incumbent not only got in the proverbial last word but the last paragraph and, of course, none of those accusations was actually true.

In the end we were outspent by a million dollars ($1,300,00 to $300,000) and the incumbent won by 58.7 percent to 41.3 percent of the votes cast. My only “consolation prize” was winning McLean County with 52.8 percent, despite the fact that it was strongly Republican in the presidential contest. The last-minute attack ads didn’t seem to be effective where I was best known.

Read more at:

http://www.iwu.edu/magazine/2005/spring/renner.html

The mayor’s race is supposedly non-partisan.  Think this information qualifies?

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From Another Website:

Biography:

Tari Renner was born in Miami Beach, Fla., and resides in Bloomington, Ill. He was raised in a single-parent household and was on Aid for Families with Dependent Children when he was young.

He received a bachelor in arts in political science in 1978 from the University of South Florida and a master of arts in political science in 1979 from American University. Renner also received his Ph.D. in 1985 in political science from American University.

Renner is chairman of the political science department and a professor at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Ill.He worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a research assistant position for eight months in 1978.

He then worked from 1980 to 1982 at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a management analyst. He worked from 1982 to 1986 as an assistant professor of political science at Washington College in Maryland.

From 1986 to 1988, he was director of survey research for the International City/County Management Association in Washington, D.C.

He returned to academics in 1988 to work as an assistant professor, and later as associate professor, at Duquense University in Pittsburgh. He left in 1993 to take his current job.

Renner is divorced and has two children.

Past Campaigns:

Tari Renner was elected to the McLean County Board in Illinois in 1998. He was re-elected in 2002.

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Quote from another article:

There’s a positive note to out-of-state donations. “Outside of your district, giving is based even more on principle rather than a tangible favor,” says Tari Renner, an Illinois Wesleyan University political science professor who ran against Weller for Congress in 2004. “No one will give you a nickel if they don’t agree with your ideology.”

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2008/Outside-Influence/

I will be watching who contributes to Tari!