Reverend Al Sharpton’s endorsement of the proposed Jets football stadium on Manhattan’s West Side has undercut the argument of the mayor’s Democratic opponents – particularly Fernando Ferrer – that Mr. Bloomberg is out of touch with minorities and New York’s “little guys,” according to city political consultants.

At a press conference yesterday on the steps of City Hall, Mr. Sharpton announced his “firm commitment” for the proposed New York Sports and Convention Center that would become the home field for the Jets. Mr. Sharpton praised the football team’s outreach to blacks, Latinos, and women in their proposals for minority hiring in stadium-related construction jobs, and derided the Jets’ rivals, Madison Square Garden, for making no similar overtures to minorities in their competing bid for the West Side rail yards.

The black activist and former Democratic presidential candidate joined several black and Latino Democrats in the City Council, and black Democratic congressmen and community leaders Charles Rangel and Gregory Meeks, in supporting the West Side stadium. And insofar as the stadium is one of the most visible issues in the mayoral race, with all four Democratic candidates attacking the mayor for his steadfast support of the project, Mr. Sharpton’s announcement makes him an unlikely bedfellow of Mr. Bloomberg.

While Mr. Sharpton said yesterday that he intends to campaign against the mayor, and said he lent his support to the West Side stadium “in spite of Bloomberg,” a Democratic political strategist, Hank Sheinkopf, said yesterday that the reverend’s announcement would inevitably help the mayor in November’s election.

“What we’re seeing is more and more black officials coming out in favor of the stadium because they believe it will generate jobs, which puts them in major opposition to the Democratic mayoral candidates,” said Mr. Sheinkopf, who worked for Mark Green’s campaign against Mr. Bloomberg in 2001.

Mr. Sheinkopf said that the Sharpton announcement would be especially harmful for the Democratic frontrunner, former Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer, because minority voters “are going to begin to take second looks at him.”

“Black officials’ being opposed to you on something as significant as the comments on the Diallo shooting, the stadium, and job issues might reduce their desire to help turn out the vote to elect you,” Mr. Sheinkopf said. He was referring to Mr. Ferrer’s comments last week that he did not believe the police shooting of African immigrant Amadou Diallo to be criminal, an observation that sparked outrage from some leaders of the black community. Mr. Sheinkopf added that Mr. Ferrer “absolutely needs to have an intense black turnout to win in the fall.”

In the meantime, Mr. Sheinkopf said, Mr. Bloomberg’s image was improved by Mr. Sharpton’s support for the stadium. “When black electeds come out in support of a project like this, they begin to destroy the argument the opponents have that the mayor doesn’t understand” the issues facing working New Yorkers. “What the mayor understands is that this project will mean jobs…they’re frankly responding to a very real concern about jobs, and Fernando is on the opposite side of that argument,” Mr. Sheinkopf, who is not affiliated with any current mayoral campaign, said.

A Republican consultant, Michael McKeon, also said Mr. Sharpton’s endorsement of the stadium on job growth grounds would help the mayor.

“This has to really open up some eyes in the minority community about this project,” Mr. McKeon said. “It’s got to help the mayor – it makes it clear that to attack this stadium as something that doesn’t help the little guy is not a credible argument,” Mr. McKeon said. “This helps dampen criticism from within the minority community that Bloomberg is out of touch.”

As for the Democrats, Mr. McKeon said, “I think it just exposes them for the political panderers that they really are. Al Sharpton is going to bring a hot spotlight on their decision to pander as opposed to focus on the facts,” the strategist added, criticizing Mr. Ferrer, the Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, and Rep. Anthony Weiner for using the stadium to attack the mayor, and making it such a prominent part of their respective campaigns.

The Democratic candidates, for their part, seemed unfazed by Mr. Sharpton’s announcement. Mr. Miller and a spokesman for Mr. Ferrer, Chad Clanton, said that they respectfully disagree with Mr. Sharpton, and believe that spending hundreds of millions of public dollars on a stadium while education is being shortchanged is inappropriate. Mr. Weiner and Ms. Fields said that Democrats fall on both sides of the stadium dispute, and said they share Mr. Sharpton’s concern for job growth. Their dispute with the reverend is a matter of location: Both Mr. Weiner and Ms. Fields have advocated building the stadium in Queens, instead of on the West Side.

At the press conference, Mr. Sharpton said that he viewed the allocation of $600 million in public funds to the stadium’s construction, which Mr. Bloomberg and Governor Pataki had pledged to the Jets, as an “investment,” not a “subsidy,” because the development would generate a net revenue increase – and more employment – for the city.

The candidates expressed no concern that Mr. Sharpton’s announcement would harm their electoral fortunes – and they may be right, according to a professor of public administration at Columbia University, Steven Cohen. By the time the Democratic primary takes place in September, Mr. Cohen said, the stadium issue “is going to fade from public view,” and “the more important mayoral issues – education, the economy, policing – will become visible again.”