(LITTLE ROCK, AR – AUGUST 12, 2009) Little Rock businessman Curtis Coleman, CEO of Arkansas based Safe Foods Corporation, has formally announced his candidacy for the United States Senate. Coleman is seeking the Republican nomination to represent Arkansans in the U.S. Senate race for the seat currently held by Senator Blanche Lincoln.“We desperately need experienced business men and women in the U.S. Senate who know what it’s like to make a payroll, provide health insurance for their employees, and who have lived under oppressive regulations created by people who’ve never had to function in the real world outside of Washington, D.C.,” Coleman said. “The critical issues facing Americans today—like healthcare reform—will have such a profound impact on our daily lives that we must replace career politicians with citizen statesmen,” he said.
Coleman’s company is helping to make food safer on three continents, with a fourth continent expected to be added this fall. “Developing a global market for our technologies has given me extraordinary experience in foreign trade issues,” Coleman said. “I understand we must not take actions such as those proposed in the current cap and trade legislation that will cripple Arkansas businesses and send even more Arkansas jobs overseas.”
Coleman managed Gov. Mike Huckabee’s first campaign for political office when Huckabee ran for the U.S. Senate in 1992. “I understand from experience the sheer enormity of effort a state-wide campaign requires,” Coleman said. “I don’t have any visions of glory or grandeur. I do have visions of my grandchildren gathering around me in 15-20 years and saying, ‘Granddad, tell us what America used to be like.’ With our government’s out-of-control spending, we’re mortgaging our country’s future and our children’s futures. I will not sit idly by and let that happen without a fight.”
“The number one issue facing us is the crippling national debt being created at the rate of over $5 billion per day. A lot of folks in Washington don’t seem to understand the simple truth that most Arkansans apply to their personal budgets: ‘You don’t spend your way out of a crisis that was created by overspending.’ I’ve already signed a pledge to oppose any increases in our taxes. I have the same intense commitment to stopping the federal government’s outrageous deficit spending. This disastrous debt is a matter of national security and a clear and present danger to the well-being of every Arkansan.”
Coleman also expressed concern over the current healthcare legislation, “We’ve first got to stop the government’s healthcare takeover, then we can start over to genuinely make quality healthcare accessible and affordable for every Arkansan. There are feasible and practical solutions to controlling healthcare costs while protecting the fundamental America freedom to control personal healthcare choices. The plans being proposed today are counterproductive to that ultimate goal. Congress is proposing that health savings accounts be taxed, when instead they should be expanded. A ‘public option’ is being touted that will ultimately destroy insurance competition, not improve it. The Washington proposal is that employers be required to provide health insurance for their employees, a requirement what will destroy even more jobs in Arkansas’ small businesses. Instead, employees need to be able to control their own portable insurance policies.”
“Although these Washington proposals are clearly not Arkansas values,” Coleman said, “they are the positions the incumbent has taken. It’s tragic that Sen. Lincoln isn’t listening to folks in Arkansas and it’s sad that she’s lost touch with the very people whose views and values she had pledged to represent. Perhaps even more disconcerting is the fact that we rarely ever know which side of an issue the Senator may take next.”
“The days when horrible bills that destroy jobs and put basic American liberties at risk are voted on without even being read must quickly come to an end,” Coleman said.
“I understand what it’s going to take to fund this campaign and this won’t be my first time around this block.” Coleman said that he had to raise over $20 million to keep his company viable through its first seven years of domestic and international regulatory roadblocks and hurdles. Coleman was winner of the 2005 Arkansas Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Coleman is a graduate of Conway High School and Central Baptist College in Conway, and Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia. He describes himself as a conservative Republican. “I have always been pro-life, I do not support embryonic stem cell research, and I am a defender of the Constitution, traditional marriage and the Second Amendment.”
Coleman, 61, is married to Kathryn Rosenbaum Coleman, and has three children and seven grandchildren. Curtis and Kathryn are active members of Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, where they currently reside.
For more information, please visit the campaign’s website.
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