A reporter for the Greensboro News Record was kicked by a Palin supporter at a rally in Elon, North Carolina yesterday. Joe Killian got kicked when he tried to interview an Obama supporter who got ousted from the rally for chanting pro-Obama slogans.

He describes how a large, beared Palin supporter knocked him to the ground with a swift kick to the back of leg:

I sidled up to one of the Obama supporters and asked why they were there, what they were trying to accomplish.

As he was telling me a large, bearded man in full McCain-Palin campaign regalia got in his face to yell at him.

"Hey, hey, " I said. "I’m trying to interview him. Just a minute, okay? "

The man began to say something about how of course I was interviewing the Obama people when suddenly, from behind us, the sound of a pro-Obama rap song came blaring out of the windows of a dorm building. We all turned our heads to see Obama signs in the windows.

This was met with curses, screams and chants of "U.S.A" by McCain-Palin folks who crowded under the windows trying to drown it out and yell at the person playing the stereo.

It was a moment of levity in an otherwise very tense situation and so I let out a gentle chuckle and shook my head.

"Oh, you think that ’s funny?! " the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. "Yeah, that ’s real funny…" he said.

And then he kicked the back of leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.

This isn’t the first time Palin supporters have mistreated the working press. Last week, a Palin supporter at a rally in Tampa told a black soundman to "sit down, boy."

(The picture is of a Puma Kick Reporter bag, in case you were wondering.)