What is going on in my beloved state of North Carolina?

No doubt, the state is struggling under the same national psychosis that has gripped the entirety of the nation for the last year and a half, but as we creep closer to election day, it seems things have hit a heightened state of crazy.

The Saturday attack on an Orange County, North Carolina GOP headquarters was apparently just the first attack on North Carolina’s Republican party.

“My email account was compromised, sending out ‘phishing’ emails to all of my contacts, with a link to a counterfeit site pretending to be Dropbox,” said Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina GOP. “I did not send those emails.”

Clicking the file name takes users to a Web page that purports to be Dropbox. The URL, however, begins with “talampayaexc.tur.ar/northwesternmutual/biz/pro/enterprise.php?….” The page prompts users to “sign in to view document shared with you” and select your email client, which includes Google, Yahoo, AOL and Outlook.

“The linked website in the email will try to trick you into putting your email address and password to ‘sign in,’” Woodhouse warned. “DO NOT enter your email or password on that counterfeit site (or on any non-verified, non-SSL secured site).”

Woodhouse went on to urge any who had received the email and had clicked on the site to change their password, immediately, as well as to never use that password again. For anything.

There may have been absolutely no connection between this and what happened in Orange County on Saturday.

Then again, it may be part of a concerted effort.

This is a strange, tense election cycle, and North Carolina is a battleground state, with not only the presidential election at stake, but a very tight gubernatorial race, and one in which outside resources have flowed into the state, in order to unseat Republican Governor Pat McCrory.

It may be too early to definitively claim a link between the two attacks, but in this current climate, never say never.