“I sent out an email ahead of time to the Dems open list, only expecting twelve or so people to show up, twenty at the most. When I arrived at the T station to go to the rally, there were about a hundred people all gathered, most of whom I had never seen before,” Lesser said. “We all went together and that is when I first started to realize that [Obama] was something special.”      

Obama’s speech at the rally inspired Lesser to join Obama’s nascent presidential campaign the next spring. Each weekend, as his classmates counted the days until Commencement, Lesser and a few other volunteers would head north to New Hampshire to organize for Obama.

“We would go up there, there wasn’t even an office when we first started. We would all meet at a bar in Manchester and strategize and hang out,” Lesser said. “I kept going and going and going, and each time I went up I brought more and more people.”

Lesser said he dropped his plans to write a thesis due to his commitments to the campaign. After graduating in 2007, he took a job to work on the New Hampshire advance team as one of the early full-time staffers for the Obama presidential campaign.

Within a few months, Lesser said senior campaign staff began to recognize his commitment and promoted him to the national advance team.

“I was essentially the equipment manager for the reporters, staff, and the Senator traveling across the country on the plane,” Lesser said. “I made sure that their bags went where they were supposed to go.”

The new position came with the privilege of traveling with the future president for much of the campaign. Lesser’s efforts caught the eye of other campaign staff, including his future boss, David M. Axelrod, then-Senator Obama’s senior campaign strategist.

“Right from the start I gleaned that Eric was very committed, very capable, and endlessly energetic,” Axelrod said. “When it came time to pick an assistant for the White House, I figured that if he could get my bags from the airplane to the hotel room and all over this country without losing them, he could probably get me from one place to another in the White House.”

Axelrod also said that Lesser was a central figure at the White House and made an effort to build relationships with fellow staffers.

“Eric was so friendly and so warm that he knew everybody. He knew everyone’s assistant,” Axelrod said. “Oftentimes I would hear about what was going on not from the Chief of Staff or from the President but from Eric. He was like a news service for me.”

THE HOMECOMING

In the fall of 2011, after spending more than two years at the White House, Lesser left the West Wing to return to Harvard to study at the Law School and serve as a Kirkland House tutor with his then-fiancé, now wife, Alison F. Silber.

Law Professor Joseph W. Singer said that he noticed a distinguishing characteristic in Lesser  that differentiated him from many of his other students.

“He was not only smart but has a lot of practical wisdom. It’s not something that everyone has,” Singer said. “I think he had a sense of not just how to analyze legal issues but understands how they work in the real world. I think he understands human nature and he impressed me with his thoughtfulness and his good judgment.”

As a Kirkland House tutor, Lesser was able to take on a new role in the House community by serving as a mentor to many students and the director of “Conversations with Kirkland,” a speaker series that brings public figures to Kirkland House to engage with House residents and affiliates.