An infamous rodeo clown is the prohibitive favorite in a Sedalia radio station’s online poll for “Sedalia Person of the Year”:

The results of an online poll for KIX 105.7 radio in Sedalia, Missouri at around 12:30 p.m. today.

Vote for the 2013 Sedalia Person of the Year [POLL]

By Rob Edwards December 10, 2013 5:30 AM

This is the final vote for the 2013 Sedalia Person of the Year award. Based off of TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year issue, this award should go to the person or group that has had the most influence on the Sedalia area in the year 2013, for better or for worse. We took your nominations, and here are the finalists.

   Clean Air Sedalia – The driving force behind the controversial Smoking Ban in Sedalia.

   Dale Malone – Owner/operator of local business Dukes & Boots. Was very involved with the Pettis County Community Santa bicycle drive for underprivileged children, and fundraisers for the family of Chad Stover.

   Harry Hoffert – Host of Huntin’ and Fishin’ with Harry. Local business owner and hunting enthusiast who is heavily involved in the Wounded Warriors and MO Kids Outdoors organizations.

   Kevin Walker. Photographer/community activist. Covers almost every event in the area and shares his photos, stories, and opinions with the community online.

   Larry Stevenson. City Councilman known for his unique actions at City Council meetings.

   Sedalia STING Unit. Local police task force responsible for several large drug busts this year.

   Tuffy Gessling. The rodeo clown in the middle of the Obama mask incident at the Missouri State Fair.

So who gets your vote for the Sedalia Person of the Year? Remember, it’s not necessarily the “Nice Guy Award”, it’s who you think had the biggest impact on the year for Sedalia…..

[emphasis added]

The sales director is probably going to get a really big end of year bonus.

Previously:

At the Missouri State Fair last night (August 11, 2013)

Of state fair rodeo announcers and clowns: res ipsa loquitur (August 12, 2013)

You know you’ve struck a nerve… (August 12, 2013)

What happened in Sedalia didn’t stay in Sedalia (August 12, 2013)

We don’t get a lot of mail (August 13, 2013)

If heads rolling was a rodeo event… (August 13, 2013)

Seriously? (August 14, 2013)

The Rodeo, The Crowd, Their Clown & His Announcer (August 16, 2013)

Rodeo Quote of the Week (August 17, 2013)

Ye shall know them by their fruits (August 19, 2013)

“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.” (August 20, 2013)

We received this email last night:

from: [….]

to: info@showmeprogress.com

date: Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 7:12 PM

subject: the clown

I’m sure all the liberals were as upset when Bush was called a killer, Hitler,vile names, had his head put on a stick and a movie made about him being murdered. I guess Obama is not all that  upset since he hasn’t said anything, I am sure he is smart enough to figure out that every president has been mocked and they roll with it, if they are man enough.  if he did come out and cry about it he would look like a wimp. .why is it that liberals are so thin skinned and can dish it out but can’t take it…oh, yes, I know why, i used to be one…very predictable. get over it, cry babies, and get a life. you over played it and now you look like fools. at least Obama didn’t fall for it. The clown  looks like the victim now, and the people that wanted their 15 minutes of fame look like little Rats..pathetic

[raises hand] Point of order. Does this mean we can invoke Godwin’s law? Just asking.

Somebody put somebody’s head on a stick? Really?

This one appears to have all the right wingnut talking points in it.

“…I guess Obama is not all that  upset since he hasn’t said anything…”

“…why is it that liberals are so thin skinned and can dish it out but can’t take…”

“…i used to be one…”

So, as a former liberal you’re saying that Obama isn’t a liberal? Just asking.

We’re totally flummoxed by the incoherence. We won’t be able to post anything here for weeks. Rats.

Previously:

Ye shall know them by their fruits (August 19, 2013)

“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. “ (August 20, 2013)

Late last night Bob Yates received another email from a rodeo clown enabler:

From: [….]

Date: Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 10:43 PM

Subject: Fw: Phony Scandal: Rodeo Clown Disses Real Thing

To: [….]

Mr. Yates:

Just read the attached article and after looking at your credentials and seeing that you are from the Chicago area, I can confirm you to are a hypocrite.  Do you not remember the Bush rodeo clown?, do you remember all the negative things that were said about Bush then and still today.  I am forwarding this article to everybody I know, I hope you and Perry Beam can live with yourselves,  you guys are classless hypocrites.

Family friendly choice of vocabulary, we think.

We can confirm you to are illiterate.

Previously:

Ye shall know them by their fruits (August 19, 2013)

Shine the light.

Bob Yates received the following email this morning:

From: [….]

Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎August‎ ‎19‎, ‎2013 ‎7‎:‎10‎ ‎AM

To: [….]

Re: Your support of Beam who reported the clown wearing the Obama

One thing about people on the Left, they have double standards.   All the crap said about about President Bush that he was a coke sniffing murder.  In fact, a rodeo clown wore a mask of, him making fun of him in public, but, when someone makes a comment about Obama, the Marxist president, all the leftist get their panties in a wad.

The whole thing about Trayvon Martin is a very good example.  The kid was a drug user, burglar and thug.   But, yet the Left and the race whores by the name of Jackson, Sharpton and Obama come out against Zimmerman.

On the other hand, just recently a white boy in Florida was beat up by 3 blacks and your media whose heads are so far up their asses that the Jaws of Life couldn’t save mentioned nothing.

SO MISTER HIGH AND MIGHTY ASSHOLE, WHERE THE FUCK WHERE YOU WHEN ALL THESE DOUBLE STANDARDS OCCURRED?  OH, I SEE YOU HAD ONE FINGER UP YOUR ASS AND THE OTHER IN THE EAR DO NOTHING.

FUCK THE LEFT THEY ARE THE PATHETICALLY STUPID FUCKING MORONS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

[….]

We rest our case.

Previously:

At the Missouri State Fair last night (August 11, 2013)

Of state fair rodeo announcers and clowns: res ipsa loquitur (August 12, 2013)

You know you’ve struck a nerve… (August 12, 2013)

What happened in Sedalia didn’t stay in Sedalia (August 12, 2013)

We don’t get a lot of mail (August 13, 2013)

If heads rolling was a rodeo event… (August 13, 2013)

Seriously? (August 14, 2013)

The Rodeo, The Crowd, Their Clown & His Announcer (August 16, 2013)

Rodeo Quote of the Week (August 17, 2013)

Obama rodeo clown incident illustrates nation’s continued racial divide

….Bernadette Brock, 67, who was square-dancing at the fair, said the rodeo incident was nothing compared with anti-Obama displays at lower-profile events.

“Honey,” Brock said, “if you had been in some of our counties down here, this was mild.”

Previously:

At the Missouri State Fair last night (August 11, 2013)

Of state fair rodeo announcers and clowns: res ipsa loquitur (August 12, 2013)

You know you’ve struck a nerve… (August 12, 2013)

What happened in Sedalia didn’t stay in Sedalia (August 12, 2013)

We don’t get a lot of mail (August 13, 2013)

If heads rolling was a rodeo event… (August 13, 2013)

Seriously? (August 14, 2013)

The Rodeo, The Crowd, Their Clown & His Announcer (August 16, 2013)

We’ve had a really interesting week here at Show Me Progress.

Most of the traffic spike has subsided. Near as we can tell, the main post, ancillary posts, and our site entry URL combined for a traffic spike of 35,000 unique hits. That’s the equivalent of three to five months (depending on the time of year) of normal traffic. We’ve had traffic spikes in the past, just nothing like this

Log scale of selected posts (including site entry URL) at Show Me Progress.

The Associated Press story (incidentally, it was good reporting and well written) included our basic blog URL as text in the body of the story, so when news outlets across the country ran it they included that information in their cut and paste. A lot of people made their way to us in this fashion.

At one point we were approaching 2000 hits an hour. And, at times, in our real time observation, we had peaks of over fifty hits a minute.

We’ve already written about how we came to the story:

…Perry Beam, a musician from Higginsville, attended the rodeo at the Missouri State Fair with his spouse and an exchange student. He posted his account on Facebook. Bob Yates saw it and posted Perry’s account and photo on Show Me Progress and the Great Orange Satan (Daily KOS – without a photo at first). At that point I noticed a small traffic spike on our site statistics, driven by Great Orange Satan traffic seeking the photo, noted that it was Bob’s post, then promoted it to the front page….

….Other people saw stuff all over social media and then we were off to the races. I was called by the Associated Press, KSHB (the Kansas City NBC affiliate) and contacted by the Kansas City Star…

If Bob Yates had known initially how to post a photo on the Great Orange Satan and not cross posted here with the photo it is quite probable that the story would have dropped like a rock in their queue with minimal notice.

Social media certainly played a part. And continues to do so.

Jason Rosenbaum ‏@jrosenbaum

This quip from ShowMeProgress’ @MBersin makes me chuckle: “Anyone interested in some posts on campaign finance?” [….] 5:33 PM – 12 Aug 13

There’s a darker part of the social media aspect of this. The comment thread at the original Kansas City Star story by Yael Abouhalkah was not a paragon of wholesome goodness. Perry Beam’s Facebook page had a few comments along those lines, too. St. Louis City Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones endured jaw dropping vitriol directed at her on her Twitter account.

We had a few trolls stupid enough to downrate frontpager comments (there’s a waiting period to post comments or diaries – our trolls have short attention spans, they couldn’t wait). Dudes, we have keys to the store. It’s our blog. Your garbage gets removed and you get banned for life – sort of like a rodeo clown.

And no, banning here is not a First Amendment issue. It’s our blog. The First Amendment allows you to post on your own blog- and maybe other people will read it, or not.

We also received a handful of emails at our group blog address. We usually get so little email that the system ends up waiting a while to aggregate enough to forward to us. We generally don’t feed the trolls, but Blue Girl sometimes likes to practice her verbal evisceration techniques. It’s a terrible thing to watch, yet you can’t avert your eyes – it’s sort of like watching a hunter on the ice club a baby harp seal.

So, if you send us a sub-literate email we’ll either ignore it or post it on the blog and publicly mock you. That depends on anyone’s mood and if it’s a slow news day. It is August, you know.

That this story was covered and had reach is a good thing. Bringing it out in the open will have the eventual and ironic effect of pushing those attitudes out of the world of acceptable discourse at public venues. In time, with no fresh public to consume them, those attitudes will whither away in the dark.

Tony Messenger, at the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

FOUL: Is Missouri really better than the rodeo clown? Evidence says no

…But the rodeo clown knew the crowd at the Missouri State Fair would cheer the potential for a bull to trample a black man named Obama. Better than this? No. This is Missouri.

In time.

Previously:

At the Missouri State Fair last night (August 11, 2013)

Of state fair rodeo announcers and clowns: res ipsa loquitur (August 12, 2013)

You know you’ve struck a nerve… (August 12, 2013)

What happened in Sedalia didn’t stay in Sedalia (August 12, 2013)

We don’t get a lot of mail (August 13, 2013)

If heads rolling was a rodeo event… (August 13, 2013)

Seriously? (August 14, 2013)

At the White House petition site:

We petition the Obama Administration to:

support Tuffy Gessling

The events recently at the Missouri rodeo and the clown wearing a mask depicting your image, has created quite a stir. As you have stated, we need to have a discussion on this topic of racism and racial discrimination. However, I feel this is not what you had in mind. As this action by this rodeo clown does not distinguish you from past presidents, I do not relate this in any way to be racially charged. You are simply the sitting president at this time therefore it is your turn; it comes with the job.

Clowns put their bodies and lives between the bull and the cowboy regardless of the color of the bull or the cowboy.

I petition you to defend the ability of clowns to protect the cowboys and entertain the crowd and to give your personal support to this particular clown, Tuffy Gessling.

Created: Aug 14, 2013

Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties

Signatures needed by September 13, 2013 to reach goal of 100,000 99,544

Total signatures on this petition 456

You think they’re holding out for a beer summit?

Previously:

At the Missouri State Fair last night (August 11, 2013)

Of state fair rodeo announcers and clowns: res ipsa loquitur (August 12, 2013)

You know you’ve struck a nerve… (August 12, 2013)

We don’t get a lot of mail (August 13, 2013)