By WILLIAM SAFIRE (NYT) 735 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 21 , Column 6
ABSTRACT - William Safire Op-Ed column says any politician taking on sitting president suffers from stature gap, but attention must be paid to Democratic hopefuls because one of them will become presidential candidate; says Sen John Edwards is slick, and he has 'fresh face' that could be next president, in event of military disaster and major depression; says Sen John Kerry has legislative experience and wartime heroism, but he lacks charisma; says if, against all odds, early primaries are inconclusive about Edwards, Kerry, Tom Daschle, Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, Howard Dean and Al Sharpton, Al Gore would be draftable, or party could turn to Hillary Clinton for salvation in 2004 (M) Way back in 1988, Republicans derided the open field of Democratic presidential candidates as ''the Seven Dwarfs.'' Any group of politicians taking on a sitting president must come to grips with the stature gap: the chief executive dominating the news from the Oval Office, Rose Garden or the commanding heights of Camp David seems larger than life.
The president as candidate can be brought down to size, as Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George Bush the elder have shown. That is why conservatives should resist the urge to characterize the many Democratic hopefuls these days as so many clowns climbing out of a tiny circus car.