US News
Obama hugger Scott Van Duzer boycotted by deranged right wingers
By April MacIntyre Sep 11, 2012, 13:53 GMT
The owner, Van Duzer, bear-hugged President Barack Obama on Sunday. Today he is receiving negative slams on Yelp and other social media sites.
A pizza parlor in Florida is ground zero for everything that is wrong in America today: The lack of political back and forth, pettiness over manners and the lack of an intelligent debate or spirit of compromise.
Politics is now an end-sum game, with the two major parties resembling each other on the extreme edges for lunacy. Ask Scott Van Duzer, the Obama hugger. His pizza shop is facing a boycott for showing the visiting president his powerlifting skills.
Politico and CNN reported that President Barack Obama was bear-hugged by Scott Van Duzer at Big Apple Pizza and Pasta Italian Restaurant in Fort Pierce, Fla., while campaigning across the state by bus on Sept. 9, 2012.
The owner, Van Duzer, bear-hugged President Barack Obama on Sunday. Today he is receiving negative slams on Yelp and other social media sites.
“People are saying a lot of bad things and boycotting my restaurant,” Scott Van Duzer, 46, told Politico. “There’s no middle line anymore, and that’s exactly what’s wrong with our country right now.”
He says that everyone of any political persuasion is welcome in his store. He even quipped that Mitt Romney’s running mate Rep. Paul Ryan would lose to the president in a workout battle. “I think Obama could take him,” Van Duzer said, laughing. “Obama looked pretty fast and pretty quick on his feet.”
Van Duzer is a fitness buff himself, a marathon biker and heavy lifter whose lengthy Florida to DC bike-trek was part of his Van Duzer Foundation, which helped raise awareness for blood donation shortages.
According to Politico, his charity fund was created in 2008 to support a local Florida firefighter who lost his home in a fire, and he has since raised more than $600,000, Van Duzer said.
Obama told The New York Times that Van Duzer’s effort in promoting blood donations was part of the reason the campaign decided to visit his pizza shop.
“One of the reasons that we wanted to stop by is that Scott has been doing unbelievable work out of this pizza shop in promoting the importance of donating blood,” Obama told the Times. “And so he has set some records here in Florida. He has received commendations from the White House, the surgeon general, he has galvanized and mobilized the local community and he’s educating kids and folks all across the country on this issue.”.”
