Conservative blogger Jason Tolbert filed a lengthy post yesterday on Curtis Coleman, a former evangelist, who launched a nifty Web site announcing his U.S. Senate exploratory committee. Mr. Tolbert wonders whether Mr. Coleman, who is on his second marriage, “has a Tim Hutchinson problem,” referring to the former Arkansas Senator who drew scrutiny for his divorce from his first wife.
In his post, Mr. Tolbert writes,
As an Arkansas political observer, one has to ask the question does Curtis Coleman have a Tim Hutchinson problem. Coleman’s divorce took place back in 1993, just after he managed Mike Huckabee’s unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign and around the same time that he left the ministry as a full time evangelistic for a career in the food industry. In 2002, then-incumbent Republican Senator Tim Hutchinson narrowly lost to current-incumbent Democrat Senator Mark Pryor. Some believe that Hutchinson’s 1999 divorce played a role in losing the close election.
Will voters ignore Coleman’s divorce as a personal family matter from his past or will the fact that it took place while he was a minister matter? Will the fact that his ex-wife now supports his candidacy make a difference or does Curtis Coleman have a Tim Hutchinson problem?
I’m willing to guess that Mr. Coleman has bigger problems as a candidate than a divorce that took place sixteen years ago. (Re-read his miserable blog post and see if you can get comfortable with his inflamatory rhetoric.) Still, it’s funny to me the issues the far right chooses to focus on in an election.
UPDATE: David Kinkade of The Arkansas Project opines,
I’d not even intended to address this issue, as it strikes me as a private family matter, but now that he’s laid it out there on the radio and it’s in the public sphere, let’s just say this: If Coleman and his family have processed the fact of his divorce, and his ex-wife is past it to the point where she says she’ll support him, then it may be well past time for his former parishioners to just let it the hell go.
UPDATE II: Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times wonders,
More relevant might be a review of his Safe Foods’ company’s work with the state during the administration of his friend Mike Huckabee.
Blake,
When will the US ATTY appointments me announced?
be announced?
Everyone has failed to mention that Huckabee’s HuckPAC headquarters are located in Coleman’s Safe Foods complex out on Northshore Drive in Maumelle!