Dodge City.(The Talk of the Town)(Dodge Landesman)

Dodge Landesman, Democratic candidate for City Council in the Second District, got his start in public speaking on the VH1 reality show "Ice-T's Rap School," as an eighth grader at York Prep, on the Upper West Side. "We had to open for Public Enemy, and it was the most daunting experience of my life," he said the other day, sitting in his living room on East Twenty-second Street, before a barbecue fund-raiser, on the roof. "There were all these angry, drunk, stoned people there, and I remember thinking to myself before I went onstage, If I can handle this, I can handle anything. I had to freestyle. Right now I may freestyle a speech, but at least I don't have to rhyme the speech or keep on the beat, which back then was tough for me."

Landesman, or Dodge City, as he was known on the show, is now in eleventh grade, and, if elected, he will be, at nineteen, the youngest City Council member in history. He has red hair and a baby face, but he is in some ways an old soul. Behind him on the wall was a poster of Dwight Eisenhower, his favorite President. "Way back in 'Rap School,' that was a huge dominating force of mine," he said, referring to the nineteen-fifties. "It died down a little bit as I grew older, but it's still an era that I reflect upon. To me, it's an era of peace and progress, and that's a big part of my campaign." Landesman was dressed in a khaki suit and wore a narrow blue necktie. He had a nick on his chin, from shaving. As he spoke, he accentuated his points with his thumb and index finger pressed together, like a natural politician, and frequently paused to compliment his guest for asking a good question. This, it emerged, was not his first campaign; last year, as a sophomore, he ran for student-council president on a platform of vending machines and dress-down days, and lost. "I was running against an eleventh grader, a pretty popular eleventh grader," he said. "You know, Richard Nixon--not that Richard Nixon's my political idol, but he did lose his first class election, and I think he was in tenth grade as well, so I always point to that. I say, 'No big deal.' "

The donors were about to arrive. Up on the roof, Landesman, noticing a smudge on his brown-and-white saddle shoes, licked his fingers and bent over to apply a manual shine. Rocco Landesman, Dodge's dad and the owner of Jujamcyn Theatres, talked with a Tony Awards voter while Jonathan Reynolds, a former Times Magazine food columnist and Dodge's stepdad, grilled hamburgers. The Landesman family connections--soon to be extended, with Rocco's recent nomination to chair the ...