The 2012 Cochise County Board of Supervisors Election : Candidate Steven Michael McDiarmid

When it comes to elections to the County Board of Supervisors, I'm as green as astroturf in this watershed year of 2012. If Steven Michael McDiarmid hadn't been a featured speaker at our weekly Palominas Tea Party meeting this evening, I'd have kept on clinging to my ignorance, too.

Which is stupid on my part. I get that, yes. Board Supes have a lot do do with our day to day lives. Most of us ignore whatever it is they do at our own peril.

On the other hand, my kid sister, a registered nurse who once ran the only medical clinic in a small Montana town for sixteen years, understands Board Supervisors very well. As Clinic Adminstrator, her interaction with the Supervisors in her county was often tricky to the max. And I did know that here at the Border Fort, Pat Call of the Cochise County Board has long been an advocate of government power-grabbing control of our private wells, so I definitely don't like that dude.

But I've not met many living, fire-breathing Supervisors in my lifetime--at least to know who they were. Incognito, maybe. So it was a pleasure to meet the Republican candidate who's throwing his hat in the ring for District 2. Steve McDiarmid is clearly a real human being, a straight shooter, and actually interested in bringing a modicum of common sense to the Board.

Who knew? Here I'd been believing you had to be a certified tax-sucking, regulation-breathing, arrogance-exhibiting alien from the planet of little tin gods to even think about running for that office.

Guess not.

The man's campaign motto is simple and to the point:

INTEGRITY and COMMON SENSE

Can't argue with that, and McDiarmid does give the impression of possessing both of those essential (but all too often lacking) qualities in abundance. He's a Viet Nam veteran, having served in the U.S. Marine Corps (1967-69) as a Recon patrol leader. And yes, he garnered a Purple Heart for his efforts.

Which reminds me. Steve, thank you for your service.

As if that weren't enough risk-taking, he's also been a Border Patrol Agent, a private investigator, an officer and EMT in a volunteer fire department, and--possibly the most dangerous of all--a substitute teacher.

Hey, you laugh, but you ought to have seen what we pulled on substitute teachers back in the day. The lot of the sub in the classroom can't have gotten much better, either. It's human nature...if in fact the average student delinquent can truly be called human.

All of that is good experience for life in general, for understanding right down to your bone marrow that what you do and say will have consequences for the lives of others--and for your own ability to function successfully under pressure. Add to that the fact that Steve owned his own business for 25 years, and it rather looks like we might just have a winner...if he can get a high enough level of name recognition by Election Day.

Yes, of course his position planks make sense. Favoring fewer government controls and mandates, for one thing. Using common sense when it comes to environmental concerns, for another.

Not that he's all that easy to find just yet. In truth, his campaign is just now getting off the ground; his website has yet to be webmastered into existence. If you'd like to find out more about Steve McDiarmid (such as how to pronounce his last name, for instance), you can reach him by email at electstevenmcdiarmid (at) yahoo.com or by phone at (520) 508-0400.

What? Oh. Right.

He's not native to Arizona--got here in 2007 from Michigan, where he was at one time the Chairman of the Tax Review Board for Clearwater Township...and a homeowner who learned the hard way just how frustrating an unreasonable Planning and Zoning office can be. When audience members fired questions about his position on Planning and Zoning, that's when we got to see the real Steven Michael McDiarmid.

Liked what we saw (and heard), too. It looks like he's not in my District according to the new maps, but if he was, I do believe I'd vote for him.

At present, Steve is working as an Investigator for the Legal Defenders Office in Cochise County. If that doesn't give him clear insight into the issues in Cochise County as a whole, I don't know what would.

If this Hub seems to lack a little bit of my usual snap and sparkle, there's an explanation. It's not the candidate. It's the office for which he's running. Cochise County Board of Supervisors? Bleah!!

But somebody's got to do it, and when it comes to this particular candidate, the voters of District 2 could (in my never humble opinion) do a whole lot worse.

Remember in November!