Determined to win off the line in his bid for an assembly seat in LD2, Atlantic County Freeholder Ernest Coursey this morning told InsiderNJ that Senator Jim Whelan (D-2) simply made a reasonable statement when he said an African American has not won an assembly seat in the district.

“I would never consider Jim Whelan a racist,” Coursey said of the veteran city swim coach, who’s retiring this year from the state senate.  “What he said – and it was a fair statement – was that an African American has ‘heretofore’ not won a seat, which is totally different from saying an African American cannot win an assembly seat. ‘Heretofore’ is totally different from ‘they cannot win.’ I pointed out to him that ‘you ran four African Americans on your ticket and none of them won.’ Whelan never said a black can’t win. I want to be very clear about that. He said ‘heretofore,’ he didn’t say they couldn’t win.

“I’ve always had a longstanding history with the Democratic Party and I’ve never been their favorite son. I don’t like the process. I think they should have more representation of women, and minorities on the ticket. I don’t think their ticket right now looks like the district, but I don’t believe Jim Whelan is a racist. On a stack of bibles, that’s not what I said. I don’t want anybody to twist what I said. But right now they do not have a diverse ticket .”

Coursey said he plans to run hard off the line in  the Democratic Primary, despite losing the convention last night.

“It was always my intent to run,” said the freeholder. “If you’re in you can win it you can go far; there are a lot of hurdles to overcome. They’re running with [Phil] Murphy. But I think I’m picking up momentum all over the place. I’m running on my proven record of being an elected official.”

He hasn’t yet picked a gubernatorial candidate.

“I  have no beef with Murphy,” Coursey said. “I had a conversation with Phil Murphy and I said the ticket should be diverse.”