State Sen. Mark Shepard, R-Bennington, has a decidedly uphill battle on his hands in his effort to win the Republican House nomination next week. Martha Rainville, his Sept. 12 primary opponent, has raised far more money than him, has more name recognition and has the unabashed support of state GOP.

Serious help, however, is on the way if Shepard does get past Rainville. FreedomWorks, a activist conservative research group based in Washington D.C. this week identified 16 House races around the country where it plans to "educate and mobilize" voters this fall with a purported network of a million volunteers and a $4 million ad campaign. The "Mark Shepard-Peter Welch" contest match-up is one of the16.

Shepard is on the radar of FreedomWorks, founded by former Texas Republican Rep. Dick Armey, because Shepard responded positively to a 10-question survey on economic issues, vowing to oppose an tax increase and support partial privatization of Social Security and scrapping the tax code in favor of a flat tax.

FreedomWorks, by recently joining forces with the Rutland-based Vermont ers for a Better Education, claims to have about 1,300 "members" in the state. Rob Roper, who runs FW's Vermont chapter, said he hand-delivered the group's questionaire to Rainville and GOP Senate candidate Richard Tarrant to fill out, but said they never did. Republican Senate candidate Greg Parke did fill out the questionnaire this week.

Unfortunately for Parke, he too is in an uphill battle -- against Tarrant.

--Sam Hemingway