<human>: Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but withdrew before the primaries. Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.

Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s when he was selected to serve as a law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs, chosen for his brilliance rather than for his ideology. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation."  Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career.  What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.  Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.  Lessig has known President Barack Obama since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago. In 2007, Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons. He was subsequently mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry. CANNOTANSWERAnswer this question using a quote from the following article:

Did he run for office?
<bot>: CANNOTANSWER