Jim Holt
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Jim Holt (born 1965) is a conservative Republican politician from Springdale, Arkansas. He was born in Camden in Ouachita County. He attended the University of Maryland in College Park for pre-med, but never finished.[1]
He served in the Arkansas House from 2001-2003 and the Arkansas Senate from 2003-2005. He ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Blanche Lincoln for United States Senate in 2004. He polled 44 percent of the vote.
In 2005 he announced his candidacy for the office of lieutenant governor and won the Republican nomination on May 24, 2006 against two other opponents[2]. Incumbent Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, a fellow Republican, but one much more liberal than Holt, did not seek reelection due to term limits. Rockefeller died on July 16, 2006. Holt lost in the general election to Democrat Bill Halter.
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[edit] Background
Holt joined the military in 1987 and served in the U.S. Army Joint Intelligence Operations at the National Security Agency under the Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, and Bill Clinton.[3] His website notes he "was involved in highly classified operations during the Cold War, the ousting of Noriega from Panama, and Operation Desert Storm."[4]
In 1996, he became an ordained Southern Baptist minister and is married to the former Bobye Barenberg and is the father of nine children.[5]
[edit] Criticism and controversy
In April 2001, Holt had creationist Kent Hovind speak before a committee at Arkansas House of Representatives.[1] Using widely debunked data from Jonathan Wells' "Icons of Evolution" work and Hovind, Holt aimed to promote intelligent design and question the validity of evolution. Hovind's "education" is from Patriot Bible University, an unaccredited correspondence school, and he is currently charged with 58 felony counts.[6][7] Like Hovind, Wells work is considered pseudoscience. Moreover Wells is connected to the controversial Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, and Discovery Institute. The bill (House Bill 2548) pushed through the house ultimately failed.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Don Michael, "The Hovind connection: Check your facts, legislators." Northwest Arkansas Times. April 05, 2001
- ^ Wickline, Michael. "‘Extremist’ Holt? Well, depends on who’s asked", Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 2, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-19.
[edit] External links
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