NJ GOP Senate Candidate Lonegan Says His Campaign Isn’t Racist

Aug 10, 2013
11:51 PM

Yesterday we shared story of Steve Lonegan, New Jersey GOP candidate for Senator, whose campaign got caught posting a bizarre racist tweet about Democratic candidate Cory Booker before the campaign deleted the tweet.

lonnegan

Today Lonegan spoke about the incident:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan said the message had “no racist intent at all.”

“There’s no racism in my campaign, and there never will be,” Lonegan said today during an appearance at a Passaic County Republican cookout in Kinnelon. “My policies are to support all Americans and provide an economic environment where everyone can prosper, regardless of skin color.”

Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota in Bergen County, also said people are tired of liberal politicians using “the race card” against conservatives like himself.

“This is all about political correctness, and America is sick of this,” said Lonegan, the former New Jersey director of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity. “My campaign worker put out a silly map tweet and it was never intended to be racist. But they will use any excuse they can to pull the race card.”

So what actually happened? The story continues:

Still, Lonegan said that as soon as he heard about the map tweet, he called his campaign to have it removed.

“It was childish and I don’t like childish stuff,” he said

Lonegan wouldn’t identify the staff member who issued the message, but said it was a “young kid on the campaign” who won’t be fired.

“I’m not going to ruin some kid who just got out of college and made a mistake,” Lonegan said. “He’ll learn from his mistake and we’ll move on.”

This is what Lonegan had to say about the critics:

“They’re all awful,” he said. “It’s just terrible, terrible, ridiculous, over-the-top over some silly map tweeted out on the internet by a campaign worker that was taken down within minutes.”