You can be forgiven if you haven't been paying attention to the contest for the GOP nomination in the race for U.S. Rep Joe Courtney's seat, representing eastern Connecticut's Second District.

I know. I know. Who could possibly defeat the congressman who has turned a garden hose of submarine building contracts into a fireboat cannon, with billions of dollars of submarine contracts and new eastern Connecticut jobs now bottled up and reserved for what seems like an eternity, for the rest of many of our lifetimes anyway.

I respect the congressmen for his many fine qualities, and I think he'd be hard to beat even if he couldn't so easily just wash away opponents with his big sub firehose.

Certainly that's a lot of the reason why there is a dearth of interesting candidates for the seat from Republicans.

Still, there is at least some entertainment value in the current contest for the GOP nomination. Indeed, two candidates will be competing for the formal party nomination at a GOP convention Monday.

One of them, Daria Novak of Madison, who is making her third run at the seat, has promised to primary if her opponent, Ann Brookes, a Westbrook tax lawyer, wins the nomination. Brookes says she will bow out if she loses the nomination.

Neither of them has held office before. But, hey, you can say that about Donald Trump, and he seems to be using that well to his advantage.

So far, strangely enough, the public discourse and debate in the GOP race for the Second, largely some radio interviews for both candidates, has been dominated by an endorsement of Brookes by the vice president of Portugal. I am not making this up.

I tried to reach Brookes to ask her how she came to know the vice president of Portugal and why in the world she thinks it matters whether he does or doesn't support her candidacy in Connecticut.

She didn't return a phone message I left at her office. I found this odd, too. You would think a first-time candidate would welcome any call from one of the principal newspapers in the district she hopes to represent. This was a very un-Trumplike silence.

Novak, meanwhile, has been hollering about the Portuguese endorsement of her opponent, suggesting darkly that it is, more or less, an attempt by the socialist government of Portugal to undermine American democracy.

Novak, and I'm not making this up, says it is reason for her opponent to withdraw from the race.

Brookes responded to this sharp attack by issuing a cease-and-desist notice to Novak, according to her campaign Facebook page. If she would call me back I would ask why in the world you would issue a cease-and-desist notice to an opponent who says something you don't like.

This isn't a court case. And even if it were, only judges get to issue such orders.

This is more like amateur hour in the Second District than a political contest for a seat in the U.S. Congress.

I will say I don't worry too much which candidate emerges from Monday's convention, the first step toward being washed away by Courtney's fireboat cannon.

I guess I would prefer the nominee be Novak, if that would spare us all the primary she has promised if she loses again.

It would also put to rest any lingering worry anywhere in the district that newcomer Brookes might beat a sitting congressman and allow the socialists of Portugal to begin to infiltrate the power corridors of Washington.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com