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By Louis Porter | Vermont Press Bureau | September 8, 2006
read story on TimesArgus.com
MONTPELIER — Mark Shepard last faced a primary in 2000, during his first run for the state Senate. He beat a fellow Republican, Louis Costanzo, even after beginning the race with less support from the leadership of the party than his opponent, Shepard said recently.
He faces a similar challenge next week when Republican voters will decide if he or Martha Rainville — the former head of the Vermont National Guard who has consistently had the support of state party leaders — challenges Democrat Peter Welch for Vermont's lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Shepard, who turns 46 on primary day, said he hardly seemed an ideal candidate for the Vermont Senate when he began his 2000 campaign.
"I knew less than 50 people in the county and I had never spoken in public before," he said. Although Shepard lost the general election, he returned two years later and won. He is in his second term as a state senator.
Garrison Nelson, a University of Vermont political science professor, said Shepard likely will have a hard time winning the primary this time around.
"The national party has pretty much committed itself to Martha," Nelson said. "Mark has no presence in Chittenden County. It may be largely Democratic but it also has close to a third of the state's population."
He expressed surprise that the Vermont Republican Party put its support so quickly and solidly behind Rainville.
"They basically feel Martha has the presence, the poise and the appeal to win," Nelson said. "This is the first time I have ever seen the state party come out so four-square for a candidate before the primary date. What if the preferred candidate gets knocked off?"
Shepard, who grew up on his parents' Hartland berry farm, never expected he would attend college. But after apprenticing as an electrician, he went to the University of Florida where he studied electrical engineering. Later, he continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.
He had problems finding work as an electrical engineer in Vermont; eventually, he started his own business so he could return to the state. The difficulty he encountered was one of the things that prompted him to consider running for office.
State lawmakers in Montpelier, he said, seemed to be out of touch with voters. "The priorities there had little to do with the lives of working Vermonters," Shepard said.
Shepard's staff consists of two part-time workers and volunteers, and his campaign operates on a tight budget. He has raised $81,000, while Rainville's campaign has raised about $660,000. Most of Shepard's campaigning has been done from a camper, which he drives around the state with his wife and four sons.
"I'm going everywhere I can to meet people," Shepard said. "I am not a statewide figure so people have got to get to know who I am."
A conservative member of the state Senate, Shepard has worked on several issues with colleagues who don't always share his political views.
In 2005, for example, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Welch, a Democrat, asked Shepard to return for a late-session vote on whether the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant should be allowed to store spent fuel in so-called "dry casks," rather than in a water-filled "wet pool." In part because of Welch's request, Shepard said, he agreed to come back. He voted in favor of the measure.
"I don't do something for or against because of who it is" Shepard said. "I enjoyed working with Peter in many ways."
The lack of support from party leaders has been a persistent obstacle, Shepard said. But then he's faced similar challenges before — for example, his first run for office in 2000.
"I will not hold it against them, but neither will I hold it for them," he said, referring to state Republican leaders who are backing Rainville. "I am not going to hold a grudge, but I owe them nothing."
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