Oh, look: Randy Brock’s trying to convince folks that the race for Governor isn’t a lost cause. He commissioned a poll from an Ohio-based Teabagger/religious right “opinion researcher” named Fritz Wenzel. Seven Days’ Paul Heintz has all the details, so I won’t delve into this too deeply except to note that even a completely biased pollster, paid by the Brock campaign, couldn’t do any better than to give Governor Shumlin a measly five-point lead.

And of course, Brock didn’t release the entire survey; just the results that look good for him.

The topline: According to Wenzel, likely voters favor Shumlin 46-41 over Brock, with eight percent for “other candidates” (which would be pretty extraordinary itself) and five percent undecided. Wenzel did not release the questions asked, which is pretty damn important in assessing the reliability of a survey.

Other red flags: It was an automated poll, conducted entirely in one night. (Polls usually take a few days to complete, because the pollster picks a sample and then makes multiple tries to reach the voters in the sample. To wrap up the survey in one night, Wenzel must have deviated quite a bit from his planned sample.)

And, as Heintz reports, Wenzel’s other polls usually skew Republican. Which only befits a guy who’s worked for candidates like Ohio nutball Jean Schmidt, Kentucky nutball Rand Paul, the ultra-right conspiracy-theory peddler World Net Daily, and the very conservative Family Research Council.

Nice choice of colleagues there, Randy.