DEAN WAY UPTOWN.(The Talk of the Town)

In the minutes before Howard Dean was to be formally endorsed by Al Gore, last week, at the National Black Theatre, on 125th Street, a representative of the Dean campaign asked members of the media to please keep to the sides in order to make room for paying guests. (Officially, the event was a fund-raising breakfast: a hundred and twenty-five bucks for o.j. and croissants.) "We've got a whole mess of supporters coming in," the staffer explained. It seemed a reasonable expectation, given the vocal backing that Dean has enjoyed in New York.

While a Dizzy Gillespie track played in the background, those already assembled in the third-floor ballroom--older folks, mostly; City Hall types and local business leaders--reminisced about the primary campaign as though it had just concluded.

"His patient was Vermont," one man said of Dr. Dean. "Now his patient is the United States." Phase 2 of the Dean campaign was about to begin.

Perhaps owing to the time of day (it was just after 8 a.m.) or the location (above Fourteenth Street), the usual Dean throngs--the young, web-savvy hipsters we have come to recognize as the candidate's devoted base--did not show. City Councilman Bill Perkins, whose district includes central Harlem, eventually mounted the stage to begin the festivities. "Ladies and gentlemen, you're in the Mecca of what we like to believe is the African diaspora, the home of the world-champion Harlem Little League," Perkins said, flanked by Yoruban wooden statues.

Perkins had himself endorsed Dean a week earlier, thereby setting himself apart from Congressman Charles Rangel, of Harlem, an early supporter of Wesley Clark. He now identified some of Dean's locally relevant (if lesser-known) policy points: "He understands that lead poisoning also is among the concerns that we have in an urban community, understands that we have a serious problem with respect to asthma and diabetes." Then, as Dean emerged from stage left, followed by Al Gore, to the tune of a country song by LeAnn Rimes, Perkins asked for "a Harlem round of applause." He commended the champion Little Leaguers again--the team's co-founder, Dwight Raiford, was in the audience--and presented Dean with a celebratory Little League cap.

"It's great ...