A reporter for the Greensboro News & Record was covering vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's rally at Elon University when things turned a little, ahem, heated, as he wrote on his personal blog.
Oh, you think thats funny?! the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. Yeah, thats real funny he said.And then he kicked the back of my leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.
From my position there I saw the bottoms of a number of feet almost accidentally stomping me to death as the two political camps screamed back and forth, the music continued to blare and some of the Obama crowd moved the large bearded man and his friends away. When I was helped to my feet the bearded man was walking away quickly.
For a moment I considered running the bloated, twelve-sandwich eating prick down and beating the living hell out of him and then I remembered that Im a reporter, how much I enjoy being gainfully employed and how hard it would be to keep my job if I got into a fistfight with a guy at a political rally.
Now, surely these folks like this guy with the errant foot, the person who yelled a racial slur at a Florida cameraman, the folks who've called out "terrorist" and "kill him" at other Palin rallies are outliers. But why is it that this election cycle's rallies, particularly Palin's, are so incendiary? Is it that Obama's some sort of supposed socialist who's going to let Bin Laden sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom? Is it because he's black? Is a certain segment of the conservative base shattered by the possibility that their values aren't shared by the majority of Americans?
The News & Record's Mark Binker writes more about the rally here.
Oh, here's the story Killian wrote for the N&R.