When a political campaign is one-sided, there’s a tendency among political journalists to try to make it seem closer than it is. For one thing, it looks unsporting to dump on an obvious loser, and the loser’s party is very likely to accuse you of bias. For another, it can hurt your audience’s interest in your product if the race is, for all practical purposes, over.

So I can understand the impulses that led Paul Heintz, intrepid Seven Days political reporter, to shade things the Republicans’ way in his Friday appearance on VPR’s Vermont Edition. This sort of thing happens a lot.

It’s still not right, but it happens.

And it certainly didn’t do Paul any favors that the interview questions were carefully curated to avoid any appearance of bias — even at the cost of accurately reporting the state of the campaign. Paul was interviewed, if that’s the word for it, by VPR’s Bob Kinzel, who always sounds like he’s reading copy rather than having a conversation. A bit stilted, his delivery is.

The topics were the campaigns for Governor and Treasurer. And if you entered the interview with no previous knowledge, you’d come out of it thinking that Randy Brock can still make a comeback and upset Governor Shumlin, and that Wendy Wilton is a serious threat to unseat Beth Pearce. And you would be lacking some crucial information about Campaign 2012.

After the jump: a somewhat obsessive deconstruction of the interview in question.

A discussion of the most recent gubernatorial debate (on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show) segued into an exchange on the health care issue. There, Heintz fell back on a journalist’s favorite crutch: the false equivalency: “Both candidates are appealing to fear,” he said.

Well, yeah, but Shumlih has “appealed to fear” on one single issue — community rating — while Brock’s health care campaign has been nonstop fearmongering from day one. So I suppose you can say that both sides are doing it, but it’s kind of like having one guy take a penny from a convenience store’s penny dish and a second guy robbing the cashier and saying they both took money from the store.

There followed a series of questions in which Kinzel brought up issues that Brock might use against Shumlin. The unstated truth behind these queries: Brock is trailing badly and needs something — anything — to put a dent in Shumlin’s armor. And then Kinzel asked Heintz:

Let’s say you’re Brock’s campaign manager. Looking at the race right now, what does Randy Brock have to do in the net 5 1/2 weeks to make this a closer race?

Again, the unstated assumption is that Brock’s campaign has been a failure so far. They can assume it, but they’re sure as hell afraid to say it. Heintz’ response:

I think maybe two things. First, I think that he’s really got to put a lot of money into television advertising.

Uh, problem. Brock’s fundraising has been so dismal that he cannot possibly “put a lot of money into television advertising.” He has very little money, especially compared to Shumlin’s massive warchest. This is the single biggest reason why the gubernatorial campaign is effectively over; Brock lacks the resources to stage the kind of ad blitz he needs. That fact goes conveniently unmentioned.

Heintz’ second point:

What he also needs is a more clear message. He seems to be vacillating between a couple of them. One is the philosophical idea that the Shumlin Administration thinks they know better than we do, and he tries to apply this to the utility merger, to wind, to health care, to many things like that. But it’s not an argument you can get into in a sound bite. He’s also worked on an economic message, saying that things just aren’t so good in Vermont right now. It’s a bad place to do business, a bad place to retire, our kids are moving out. And I’m not sure that that message is really resonating either. It provides an opportunity for Shumlin to turn around and be a real optimist.

Sort of true, but missing the real point. Brock has tried a variety of issues — remember the tie-dyed bear? — and none of them has worked. He’s been throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall and hoping something sticks. But the problem isn’t the lack of clarity; it’s the utter lack of effectiveness. The latter is the cause of the former.

It would also have been nice to note that late September is way too late to be reinventing a campaign or testing out a new theme. But then, we can’t possibly say out loud that Randy Brock is a dead man walking.  

Then it was on to the Treasurer’s race which, according to Kinzel, “seems to be very competitive.” He didn’t offer any evidence for that assertion. Heintz’ take:

This is an interesting one…. The incumbent is actually less politically experienced than the challenger. Wendy Wilton has run for office a number of times, and she is more comfortable with retail politicking than Beth Pierce is.

Ah, The Pol and The Wonk, a storyline borrowed from the Auditor’s race. I would point out that while Wilton has, in fact, run for office a number of times, she has a mixed track record. She served one term in the State Senate and got bounced in her bid for re-election. She then settled into the elective but very low-profile Treasurer’s office in Rutland. Not exactly a sterling resume. And Pearce, although a rookie pol, has certainly held her own in organizing and fundraising. More Heintz:

My feeling about this race is that the Democratic Party thought that this was not going to be a really tough race.  I think their strategy was to keep a low profile throughout the campaign season and expect that if President Obama and Governor Shumlin end up doing quite well in November, that Beth Pearce will benefit from their coattails.

A couple of points. First, I disagree with the assertion that the Dems thought they could sleepwalk through this race. Pearce and the Democratic Party certainly kicked into high gear on fundraising; she’s second only to Governor Shumlin in campaign fundraising among candidates for state office.

Second, this is Heintz’ one and only mention of the coattail effect, and it’s woefully incomplete. The Dems will also benefit from the presence of Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch on the ballot, facing little-known and underfunded Republican challengers. The coattail effect will certainly be strong; it may, in fact, be the dominant factor in the outcome of the election. Back to Heintz:

I think that dynamic has changed in recent weeks, and the reason for that is that this conservative superPAC called Vermonters First has invested heavily in supporting Wendy Wilton’s campaign. And in so doing, I think that they’re tipping the scale a little bit in a race in which most voters don’t really know either candidate.

He certainly has a point there — although, again, he cites no evidence for his impression. But it’s a funny thing; in the Treasurer’s race, he makes a very big deal about the influx of superPAC money changing the dynamic, whereas in the gubernatorial race, the influence of Shumlin’s 4:1 cash advantage goes unmentioned amid a flurry of talk about tactics and issues. So the question: Does money play a big role (Treasurer) or a minimal one (Governor)?

*Also unmentioned: the implications of Vermonters First’s failure to put one single dime behind Brock. Which I can only interpret as a tacit acknowledgment that Randy Brock is beyond help. Otherwise, wouldn’t they rather influence the race for Governor rather than Treasurer?

All in all, it was an inoffensive way to fill ten minutes of airtime. But if the purpose was to inform listeners, it was pretty much a dull failure. Blandness, inoffensiveness, false equivalency, and ignoring the elephant (ahem) in the room: the fact that the VTGOP is  poised for an epic FAIL.

But I guess objective journalists can’t say so, even if it’s the truth.