The former borough president of the Bronx, Fernando Ferrer, picked up the endorsement of the Village Independent Democrats, a liberal Manhattan political club, last night.

During a town-hall-style forum in a community center on Sullivan Street, each of the four Democrats looking to unseat Mayor Bloomberg made their case for the group’s support.

The event, which was conducted like a student council meeting with rules on how long each candidate could speak, was among the first in a marathon process. Between now and the election in November, all of the candidates, including Mr. Bloomberg, will be seeking endorsements wherever they can get them.

The Greenwich Village club is best known for taking down the last big Tammany Hall boss in the early 1960s and being the place where Edward Koch cut his political teeth.

Last night, rather than going after each other, the Democratic candidates reserved their attacks for Mr. Bloomberg, a former Democrat who registered as a Republican to run in the 2001 mayoral election.

The Village club did not give any candidate a majority in the first round of voting and had a runoff between Mr. Ferrer and the speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller of Manhattan. In the end, Mr. Ferrer won 26 votes, Mr. Miller got 12, and seven members voted to hold off on the endorsement until later in the political season.

The candidates each took the stage individually, and in campaign fashion touted their accomplishments and stated their positions on everything from the proposed West Side stadium to health care, from the death penalty to same-sex marriage.

Mr. Ferrer, who was the favorite for the club’s endorsement going into the night, talked about the “crushing shrinkage of the middle class” and said the mayor cannot “run New York like a subsidiary of Bloomberg Inc.”

The candidate spoke in a measured cadence and even pulled a yellow MTA MetroCard out of his wallet at one point while making the point that he was in touch with city residents.

Mr. Miller spent much of his time talking about “affordable housing” and education and discussing what he characterized as Mr. Bloomberg’s failures.

He called New York a “swing city” and said voters needed to return it to Democratic leadership. In a room full of people who backed Senator Kerry in the presidential race over President Bush, that went over well.

A member of Congress from a Brooklyn-Queens district, Anthony Weiner, said the mayor had failed to obtain enough money for the city from Washington and Albany – a charge the candidates regularly make about the mayor.

“He’s actually made it harder for people like me, and Jerry Nadler, and Charlie Rangel,” he said, referring to two fellow New York Democrats in Congress. The mayor, he said, puts out the signal that New York City is fine and doesn’t need more money.

The Bloomberg administration has repeatedly said that maintaining good relationships with Governor Pataki and Mr. Bush benefits the city. The Democrats have been saying his publicly calm demeanor is not working.

The club’s endorsement is just one of several given in the last week. Mr. Miller and Mr. Ferrer divided several endorsements of Brooklyn clubs this week. And Mr. Miller won the endorsement of the Lenox Hill Democratic Club.