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When newly elected Massachusetts State Senator Eric P. Lesser ’07 arrived at Harvard from his hometown of Longmeadow, Mass. in the fall of 2003, his career in politics was well along its way.

“Eric has always been focused on public service. He practically came out of the womb focused on public service,” said Jake C. Levine ’07, who first met Lesser in high school when they served together as U.S. House of Representatives Democratic pages during the summer of 2001.“When he was sixteen, he prevented the jobs of 40 teachers from his hometown from being cut due to a lack of funding by organizing a massive door-to-door campaign. His campaign slogan when he was elected high school class president was ‘The Lesser of Two Evils.’ Even his AOL screen name was ‘prezboy007.’”

At Harvard, Lesser continued his political engagement, jumping into numerous programs at the Institute of Politics. In the spring of 2004, Lesser’s freshman year, Lesser, Levine, and Peter P.M. Buttigieg ’04, now the mayor of South Bend, Ind., co-taught at Baldwin Elementary as part of CIVICS, a joint program offered by the IOP and the Phillips Brooks House Association that sends College students in teams to teach civics classes at local public elementary schools.

Lesser’s friends say that they remember how well he connected with fellow IOP members. That coalition building has taken Lesser from Harvard to the Obama presidential campaign, the White House, and last month to victory in the First Hampden and Hampshire Senate district in western Mass. Lesser, who is also a former Law School student and former Kirkland House tutor, will begin serving on Beacon Hill in Boston on Jan. 7.

OH KIRKLAND, OH KIRKLAND

As he jumped into the campus political scene, Kirkland House residents say that Lesser also applied a trademark enthusiasm to House life.

“Eric was a house patriot right from the beginning,” said Kirkland House Master Tom C. Conley. “He identified with the house. He made it more than just a residence; he made it a locus communis.... He was always excited about something.”

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One of Lesser’s legacies at Kirkland is “The Ode to Kirkland,” which he wrote during his junior year.

“It was the night before Housing Day, and I was overcome with pride in Kirkland House. I had been talking with my roommates about it, and I just sat down and in a flow of consciousness typed out this little ode,” Lesser said. “I shot it out to everybody on the Kirkland open list at about 1 or 2 in the morning and declared in the email that we have to study this and learn it and sing it tomorrow when the new freshmen come for the welcome reception."

Though Lesser’s undergraduate days are long gone, the Ode has survived.

“The Ode has become the identificatory lyric Kirkland House,” Conley said. “It stayed with him and is now being passed on from one class to the next and people sing it at every House gathering. It is absolutely unique.”

KIRKLAND HOUSE TO THE WHITE HOUSE

In November 2006, Lesser’s enthusiasm for politics led the College senior, who was serving as president of the Harvard Democrats, to a local rally headlined by Deval L. Patrick ’78, the soon-to-be governor of Massachusetts, and then-Senator Barack Obama.