Editor’s note: This is part of a series of Student Government executive alliance candidate profiles before the election on March 2 and 3. Read the rest of the profiles and submitted columns from all of the candidates here.

Brendan Walsh is running for student body president, but he does not want the position.

Vice presidential candidate Max Edwards, a Plan II and radio-television-film junior, declined an interview because Edwards does not believe in being depicted in print, Walsh said. 

Walsh said his platform is that he does not want to be president, so he will find qualified policy experts to come up with solutions for students.

“I guess it’s split about evenly between (our not wanting the position) and our professed inability to define what is best, which I think is an inability that everybody does have, but I think we’re the only ones who are saying that we are deficient in that matter,” said Walsh, a Plan II and philosophy junior.

Walsh said he does not believe ambition has a place in democracy. He said Athenians drew their leaders at random with a process to keep ambitious people out of politics. 

“The kind of people who want to lead probably want to lead for reasons that aren’t entirely just,” Walsh said. “I think that most people who are running stand something to gain out of this, besides doing what they think to be a good thing.”

Walsh said he will not benefit from becoming president and is not using the election as a “stepping stone” for his personal life. He said it will not help him with his career, time management or his personal relationships, and that makes him an ideal candidate.

“It’ll probably drive friends and family away from me, so it’s really sort of a losing situation for me personally, which is why I think that I’m the best person to take the position,” Walsh said.

Walsh said he plans to go to graduate school for philosophy. He said he spends most of his time writing about philosophy but said he is not sure how it would inform his campaign.

Walsh said he and Edwards do not know what they will do if they get elected and do not know what is best for the University, but other candidates have ideas about addressing the University’s issues.

“I’ll say a vote for us is a vote of no confidence,” Walsh said. “I think (saying it’s a protest vote) might be pushing it a little bit too far.”