Jim Keet

James Holland "Jim" Keet
Arkansas State Senator for District 15
In office January 1993 – January 1997
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Jim Argue
Arkansas State Representative for Distrct 58
In office January 1989 – January 1991
Preceded by	Dana Moreland
Succeeded by	Paul Doramus
Born	May 12, 1949 Springfield, Missouri
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Margaret Osborn Keet
Children	James Chase Jake Cassie
Alma mater	Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University
Religion	United Methodist

James Holland Keet, known as Jim Keet (born May 12, 1949), is a restaurant owner in Little Rock, Arkansas, a former state senator and state representative. He was the Republican nominee for governor of Arkansas in the general election held on November 2, 2010, but he lost his race to incumbent Democrat Mike Beebe.

Background

Keet was born in Springfield in Greene County in southwestern Missouri. He graduated in 1971 from Southern Methodist University near Dallas, Texas, with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. He was student president for the college of business.

Keet has been in the restaurant business for nearly five decades. In 1975, he joined Gerald Hamra to bring the first Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburger] to Arkansas. Thereafter, the company developed, owned, and operated twenty-seven Wendy's and Sisters' restaurants in Arkansas and Texas, with more than 1,. The company, though based in Birmingham, Alabama has five locations in Little Rock and the former president and chief executive officer of Barnhill's Buffet. He and his wife, the former Margaret Osborn (born c. 1950), have four children and two grandchildren.

Political activities

Keet was elected to the state House from District 58 in 1988. In 1990, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives to succeed Tommy F. Robinson, who ran for Governor, but he lost the general election to former U.S. Representative Ray Thornton. He made a comeback when he won his Senate position in 1992 from the newly organized District 15 in Pulaski County, having defeated the Democrat John Pagan in a tough campaign. As a legislator, Keet co-sponsored the "three-strikes-and-you're-out" violent offender law and worked to pass legislation to raise the state's literacy rate.

In 1999, Keet was boating on Lake Hamilton south of Hot Springs, when an accident occurred that took the lives of eleven persons. Keet had four years earlier co-sponsored a bill that added several new water safety rules to the Arkansas code, including the requirement that children wear life preservers on most boats. However, the provision did not apply to duck boats, the kind involved in the tragedy, which sank within thirty seconds. Before entering the gubernatorial race, Keet had planned to seek the position of lieutenant governor, which incumbent Democrat Bill Halter vacated in his bid to unseat U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln. Keet left his state House after fewer than two years of service to run unsuccessfully in 1990 against the Democrat Ray Thornton for the United States House of Representatives seat vacated by Democrat-turned-Republican Tommy F. Robinson, who instead made an ill-fated gubernatorial bid, having lost the primary to businessman Sheffield Nelson, who in turn was defeated by Bill Clinton.

Prior to 2002, Keet managed the Little Rock office of then U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson, who was unseated that year by the Democrat Mark Pryor, the son of former Senator and Governor David Pryor. Keet left Arkansas in 2002 to manage a troubled business, successfully turning around the failing company, but returned to Arkansas in 2008.

Gubernatorial race

In his gubernatorial race, Ket emphasized creative methods to improve the state's business climate, to advance literary initiatives at all grade levels, and to reform the state tax structure to foster the creaton of new jobs. In his announcement of candidacy, Keet said that:

"Arkansans are sick and tired of the divisiveness and destructive rhetoric that we see on a national basis. I intend to bring a breath of fresh air to the campaign trail by discussing issues and differences of opinion constructively. I want to create a new day in Arkansas politics where everyday citizens are attracted to the political process rather than disgusted by it."

Little Rock journalist John Brummett said that Keet's "gubernatorial candidacy would bring some business and political credibility. It would be about the best the Republicans could hope to wage. By prevailing legal opinion, Republicans need a candidate who gets more than 3 percent to remain automatically qualified for the [2012] ballot. Keet would beat that by quite a bit."

Political guru Jason Tolbert, in a column entitled "The Audacity of Jim Keet," asks what kind of campaign the former state senator will wage against Governor Beebe, whom Keet calls "a friend." Tolbert asks, "The question remains: What type of campaign strategy does Keet have the audacity to run? Will he play nice in a raise against a friend and save his biggest punches for Washington? Or, will he run hard at Beebe and try to take down his high approval numbers?"

Keet was dogged by questions surrounding his residency and whether, having returned to Arkansas in 2009, he met the state constitutional requirement for governor of having "been for seven years a resident" of Arkansas. Keet registered to vote in Florida in 2003 and, as a legal resident of Gulf Breeze, voted in Florida elections. Despite widespread Republican success nationally and in other Arkansas races, Keet was defeated by Beebe in the general election by a margin of 65 to 33 percent, with the remaining 2% going to former State Representative Jim Lendall, who ran on the Green Party line. Beebe defeated Keet in all of Arkansas' seventy-five counties, making him the first governor to do so since David Pryor's margin of 84% in his 1976 re-election over Republican Leon Griffith.