The Democrats running for mayor seem to be engaged in a bidding war when it comes to the number of new police officers the city should hire.

The speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, repeating his past suggestion yesterday, called on Mayor Bloomberg to hire 1,000 new police officers to free a like number of veteran officers for the city’s counterterrorism operations.

A few hours later, one of Mr. Miller’s rivals in the Democratic contest for mayor, C. Virginia Fields, borough president of Manhattan, upped the ante by calling for the hiring of 2,000 officers.

The front-runner, Fernando Ferrer, former Bronx borough president, has urged that 3,000 officers be transferred from desk jobs to patrol duty, and that civilians be hired to fill those administrative positions.

With his proposal in May, however, Rep. Anthony Weiner seems to have won the auction. He promised to add 3,800 new police cadets.

During a speech yesterday morning, Mr. Miller also called on the mayor to abandon the outcome of a binding arbitration with the police officers union and give new police recruits higher starting salaries. He called the $25,100 starting pay under the current deal a “disgrace.”

“Clearly, a starting salary that leaves a family still on food stamps is not going to be effective in recruiting new police officers to our force,” Mr. Miller said.

The police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, has said that under the new pay structure the recruitment of new officers will be challenging and that he would like to see a boost in pay for new hires.

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A televised mayoral debate last night at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn was characterized by unswerving campaign messages, and uniform and increasingly boisterous attacks on Mayor Bloomberg.

Three of the Democratic mayoral contenders, Mr. Ferrer, Ms. Fields, and Mr. Miller, and a Republican, Thomas Ognibene, former minority leader of the City Council, answered questions from panelists and one from an audience member in a 90-minute standoff. The fourth Democrat in the race, Mr. Weiner, planned to attend but “was stuck in Washington,” the debate moderator, Dominic Carter of NY1, said. Mr. Bloomberg was invited but declined to participate.

Mr. Ognibene, who expects to run as the Conservative Party nominee, criticized the mayor’s absence.

“If he doesn’t have the guts to come here, he doesn’t have the guts to run the city of New York,” he said, prompting Mr. Miller to suggest that Mr. Ognibene be invited to all upcoming debates.

Candidates criticized Mr. Bloomberg on high rates of unemployment among minorities, poor education, a lack of affordable housing, and the effects of citywide gentrification.

All five candidates broadly criticized random searches of bags in subway stations, a policy instituted late last week after bombings in London’s Underground.

“How about putting the token agents back in the token booths?” Mr. Ferrer suggested.

Mr. Miller condemned the mayor for turning over security policy to “a bunch of bureaucrats at the MTA who can’t make the trains run on time.”

Through the first half of the debate, the five candidates struggled to differentiate themselves, prompting Mr. Carter to ask the group to turn away from the mayor and highlight their own dissimilarities.

Mr. Ognibene noted the enormous difference in wealth between him and the mayor, and joked, “I’m 6-foot-3 and good-looking, and he’s not.”

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Mayor Bloomberg shared a few slices of kosher pizza with Boro Park supporters yesterday afternoon, after he received the endorsement of a Democrat in the State Assembly, Dov Hikind, who has represented Boro Park, Dyker Heights, Kensington, and Flatbush for 22 years.

“This is one of the easiest endorsements I’ve ever had to make,” Mr. Hikind said, surrounded by Bloomberg supporters holding sings that said “Mike Bloomberg ’05,” with the “Mike” spelled out in Hebrew letters and a Star of David standing in for the apostrophe before the election year.

Mr. Hikind said Mr. Bloomberg had been responsive to Brooklyn’s Jewish community, and he praised the mayor’s record on crime and education.

Mr. Bloomberg, who has traveled to Israel four times since he became mayor, said he was “proud” to receive the endorsement.

Before entering Amnon’s Kosher Pizza, Mr. Bloomberg boasted that assaults and auto thefts had dropped significantly in the local precinct since he had taken office, and anti-Semitic incidents had dropped 53% citywide.

“We have no tolerance for intolerance of any kind,” he said.