PETER LESSER WADES IN

Peter Lesser was a 2-year-old toddler in Manhattan when Henry Wade was first elected district attorney of Dallas County.

In the ensuing 32 years, Lesser has done a lot of things, such as grow up, get a law degree, move to Dallas, espouse liberal causes and practice criminal law.

Wade, meanwhile, has continued as district attorney, sending an inordinate number of men to death row in the process.

Lesser thinks enough is enough. He’s challenging Wade in the May 1 Democratic primary as the crusty conservative seeks his ninth consecutive four-year term.

It would be difficult to imagine a sharper contrast in style, ideology and Weltanschauung than that afforded by activist Lesser, 34, and establishment-oriented Wade, 67.

Lesser unfurls his challenge in a clipped New York accent: “I’ll go out into the community and talk to the people, especially the young people. I’ll make the office more visible. After all, we’re talking about the number one law-enforcement officer in the county.”

Wade defends his record in the Southern drawl of his native Rockwall: “The controlling issue will be the way I’ve run the DA’s office for more than three decades. The people of Dallas know that I’m firm but fair; I’ll stand on my record.”

Wade has usually run for re-election without opposition in his lengthy tenure.

How, then, does Lesser, a former reporter with Channel 13’s Newsroom, who is making his first political race, propose to bring this electoral behemoth to bay?

“Henry Wade is out of touch with the people,” Lesser says. “The office needs to be made more modern and efficient. He’s using a 1952 approach to 1982 problems.”

Lesser says Wade has had too many reversals by appellate courts because of his “mad dog” prosecution, which is both “wasteful and embarrassing.”

Wade sticks to his record, pointing out that only 6 percent of his jury trials last year ended in acquittals, “the lowest rate in the whole country.”

Wade has noted that Lesser is a member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), to which Lesser replies: “So what? I’m also president of the Dallas Criminal Bar Association.”

It would seem that Lesser’s only real hope lies in a small turnout of voters in the Democratic primary, with many of Wade’s usual conservative supporters getting involved in the Republican fracases.

One Republican has also filed for DA: North Dallas attorney Richard Harrison, 51. He’s a former FBI agent and SMU law graduate who says he’s running because, he says, “I think I’m the best man for the job.”