‘Like an SNL skit’: Columbia diners pan Democratic debate on Fox News
Diners at a Columbia Lizard’s Thicket on Wednesday shared table space with an out of town guest — and thousands of his viewers.
In between a nationally-televised presidential debate on Tuesday and the Democratic primary on Saturday, a couple dozen people at the Elmwood Avenue restaurant welcomed Fox News correspondent Todd Piro, who did a series of live hits for the network’s morning show “Fox and Friends.”
Piro was there to get South Carolinians’ reactions to the previous night’s debate between seven Democratic presidential candidates in Charleston.
The result was not what Democrats would want to hear. Most said the debate involved too much shouting and gesticulating and not enough appealing policy proposals.
“It was a free-for-all brawl,” said Pressley Stutts. “It was like a Saturday Night Live skit.”
The crowd wasn’t a random sampling of breakfast-goers though. Most turned up because they had seen a visit by Fox News promoted on social media.
Stutts, a retired Navy chaplain and a member of the Greenville Tea Party, drove to Columbia early Wednesday in his “Make America Great Again” hat and “Veterans for Trump” button. He shared a table with Cole Kazmarski, a Lexington resident in an oversized foam MAGA hat.
But others were similarly unimpressed with the Democratic field. Mike Genova, a Columbia karate instructor, had a frank assessment of one-time frontrunner Joe Biden.
“I think Biden is toast,” Genova said. “People don’t want a politician. That’s why Trump won.”
He thinks Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is the more likely to win the Democratic nomination because “young people think they can get everything for free,” but he thinks the strength of the economy and the low unemployment rate will be enough to deliver a second term to President Donald Trump in November.
“Everybody in business in South Carolina will tell you they’re doing better than they have ever done,” he said. “You go into restaurants and they can’t hire enough servers. They put out the help wanted sign, but the unemployment rate is just 2.5%.”
Genova’s friend Bruce Brutschy, a personal trainer, said he was impressed by the debate performance of Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
“I think he’s really articulate and able to relate to people,” Brutschy said of Buttigieg. “When the others talk, it feels like talking points, but he seems like he really feels what he’s trying to say.”
Klobuchar, he says, “is doing a better job. She at least doesn’t act like a bully.”
But Brutschy, who identifies as a conservative Republican, says he won’t be voting on Saturday.
“I’m not going to play it like that,” he said. “I’m just going to let (the primary) shake itself out.”
But Stutts is planning to vote. An advocate of the “Operation Chaos” theory that conservatives should take advantage of South Carolina’s open primary to vote for weaker Democrats, Stutts is encouraging people to vote for Sanders, whom he calls the “best worst candidate” from a Republican perspective.
“It sets up a clear contrast between President Trump and capitalism, and Bernie Sanders and socialism,” he said.
“Fox and Friends” is hosted by S.C. native and University of South Carolina grad Ainsley Earhardt. While she didn’t make an appearance at Lizard’s Thicket on Wednesday, the Earhardt family was represented by her dad, Wayne Earhardt, who said he “got a very early start” to be there for the 6 a.m. broadcast.
“I usually go to bed about 12,” he said. But, “I’m here to support Ainsley and Bobby” Williams, the owner of Lizard’s Thicket.
“My dad has been going to the Two Notch Road location of Lizard’s Thicket for more than 30 years every week for his men’s ‘breakfast club,” Ainsley Earhardt said in a statement about Wednesday’s broadcast. “The Williams family have been close friends for decades. My dad coached their sons’ basketball team at Cardinal Newman High School years ago and their family is one of the nicest in our community.”
Lizard’s Thicket operates 14 restaurants in the Midlands and one in Florence, according to its website.
Williams said he’s welcomed national news organizations to his Columbia-area restaurants for years now. He thinks the locally-owned Southern eateries have become a good symbol of South Carolina at election time because they can serve a wide range of customers for reporters to talk to.
“We feed the entire population,” he said. “We feed everybody from bank presidents to people with minimum wage jobs.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 9:02 AM.
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