Welcome to Bizarro Amerika!

Hinds County Republican executive chairman Pete Perry told TPM that he received a phone call around 2:00 a.m. CT on Wednesday from Janis Lane, president of the Central Mississippi Tea Party, who said she was locked inside the Hinds County courthouse. That would be where the circuit clerk and election commission offices, and the primary election ballots, are located.

The incident seemed to mystify Perry, a Cochran supporter. The ballots had been secured prior to the intrusion, according to local authorities.

"I don't know. I know I wouldn't walk into a courthouse at 2 o'clock in the morning by myself or with somebody else and just walk around inside the building," Perry said. "I'm not going to go into a public building just because somehow or another I happened to find a door that was unlocked.

"Especially if it's going down to where a bunch of election materials were and I'd been deeply involved in a campaign," he added. "I am 64. I was involved in politics when I was real young, and I remember people breaking into a hotel in the middle of the night."

The Central Mississippi Tea Party endorsed McDaniel in his fight to unseat Sen. Thad Cochran for the Republican nomination, which is headed for a runoff on June 24 after Tuesday's primary. One of the group's board members, attorney Mark Mayfield, was arrested in May in connection to the break-in by a McDaniel supporter, who allegedly took pictures of Cochran's wife at the nursing home where she lives.