Santa Rosa Beach businessman Mark Wichern is among eight Republicans who want to succeed retiring Cong. Jeff Miller from Florida’s 1st House District.
Wichern, a native of Cincinnati, has been a Floridian for the past two decades, first coming to the Sunshine State as a minor league pitcher. He ran for Miller’s seat in 2014 as a No Party Affiliation [NPA] candidate. This time around, he’s seeking the GOP nomination.
“To get back into it this time, we had built quite a base and picked up 16,000 votes in two months [in 2014] running No Party Affiliation,” said Wichern. “Of course, the reason I got in as an NPA is it was two weeks before the primary when I got in. It just didn’t make sense to run in a Republican primary, although I’ve always been a Republican.”
On Wichern’s campaign website there’s his main plan, dubbed “Restore the Republic" which he says can get accomplished at the grassroots on two levels: action in Congress and locally through what he calls “constitutional sheriffs” to curb property encroachment by the federal government.
“Whether it be the EPA’s Endangered Species Act, the Blueways and Greenways [program], the federal government has overstepped its bounds authorized by the Constitution,” Wichern said. “And if we have any chance to get our country back, we’re going to have to go back to the Constitution and hold the federal government accountable for what they’re doing.”
One of the other issues about which Wichern is passionate is education. He calls for abolishment of the U-S Department of Education in favor of local control of schools, and the scrapping of Common Core testing. Wichern calls it “way worse” than No Child Left Behind.
“They’re actually guiding our children to career paths, beginning in preschool age all the way through,” said Wichern. “Testing and benchmarking children at third grade and again at eighth grade, which is directing them in an area we don’t want to go. It’s taken away full control away from the parents and instilling it in Washington, D.C.”
Wichern’s academic path is somewhat different than other candidates. He spent a decade studying Austrian economics, along with world and U-S history. To that end, he wants to do away with the Federal Reserve and replace it with what he calls “intrinsic valued money.”
“The Fed is nothing more than a private bank that creates money from thin air and loans it to our government at interest,” Wichern contends. “The goal of the Federal Reserve is to make sure America borrows as much money as possible; whether it be from these undeclared wars, [and] this wonderful phenomenon called Global Warming. This is all an expansion of the federal government outside the Constitution.”
And what about global warming? Wichern says regulations placed in effect because of it adds to the national debt, which in turn can hurt small business.
“If we want to move to an alternative energy, I’m wide open for it,” Wichern says. “And that’s what I found out when I discussed it with the Democrats in the last election. I said, ‘OK, let’s put the science aside – what is it you want to accomplish?’ They wanted to have a better energy method, that’s not going to create such as large carbon footprint.”
Many Republican office holders and candidates are distancing themselves from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Mark Wichern is not one of them.
“I’m one of the few guys that were on the Trump Train in the beginning,” says Wichern. “I was teetering back and forth between he [sic] and Rand Paul, because I was a big supporter of Ron Paul. But I really like Trump because he’s anti-Establishment. And I’m anti-Establishment.”
Along with the Fed and the Department of Education, Wichern also wants to abolish the Department of Veterans Affairs, and give vets the ability to visit the doctor and hospital of their choice.
