I heard much ugly laughter when I got the 2000 presidential election wrong. I had told the experts they were wasting their time with tracking polls and ethnic breakdowns and census tract data. I was picking the electoral college winner every four years with nothing more than a telephone call to each campaign office, asking a single question: How tall is your candidate?

Until 2000, only two out of 12 presidential elections in the television era had been won by the shorter candidate — Nixon in 1972 and Carter in 1976. My landmark study of the 1990 U.S. Senate races, unaccountably ignored by the finer political journals, showed the smaller entrant winning only eight out of 31 elections.

But in 2000, 6-foot-1 Al Gore Jr. lost to 5-foot-11 George W. Bush. The political reporters, analysts and other know-it-alls of my acquaintance enjoyed my humiliation.

I know. Gore won the popular vote. I could, if I wanted to, take some comfort in that. I’ve argued that as a species we equate height with maturity, intelligence and sex appeal. If people see in the television debates or newspaper photos that one politician is taller than the other, they’re more likely to vote for the larger person. I could point out to my critics that Gore got 543,895 more votes, mark down 2000 as at least a moral victory for tape measure prognostication, and move on.

But there’s a lot more riding on this than my track record. I began writing about heightism in politics in 1988 out of genuine outrage. I am not a tall person myself, and I thought Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis was suffering unfairly, in the editorial cartoons and late-night comic monologues, for being a half-foot shorter than the eventual winner, George H.W. Bush.

So knowing that Gore triumphed, at least in voter choice, because of a couple of inches of extra tissue is not a fact that makes me happy. The world continues to dismiss the undersized. Doug Flutie loses quarterback jobs to lesser talents because he’s only 5-10. Elijah Wood, at 5-6, will have to find another line of work now that his “Lord of the Rings” gig is over. I suspect you noticed, as I did, that Sports Illustrated’s two Sportsmen of the Year were both 7 feet tall.

And yet I have this new feeling that I almost dare not describe, for fear of eventual, bitter disappointment. Here it is: What if the 2000 election was a turning point? What if our civilization, through the intervention of powerful transitional figures like Danny DeVito, Michael J. Fox and Muggsy Bogues, has come to appreciate the undersized? Could the 2004 election be another victory for the short?

There are signs of something happening, something important. And as usual the experts say nothing about it. Consider this: George W. Bush is the first person under six feet tall to occupy the White House in two decades. Four years ago, five of the 11 presidential candidates were six feet or taller, and their average height was slightly over 5-11. The average height of this year’s 10 candidates has shrunk to 5-10. Only three of them are six feet or taller (and some say that would be only two if North Carolina Sen. John Edwards had not stretched a bit.)

There’s more. The tallest candidate by far, Sen. John Kerry, Mass., is 6-4, but he hasn’t been leading in the polls. The front-runner, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, is shorter than every other candidate except Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 5-7, and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, 5-4. (Note: Rep. Richard Gephardt’s official height has indeed decreased two inches since 1988. He and I are both at an age when shrinkage is possible.)

Dean is the first candidate in the five presidential campaigns I’ve analyzed to express his official height in quarter inches. An official spokesperson told me he is 5 feet 8 3/4 inches tall. This is obviously a blatant attempt to win the short vote. I’ve always given my official height as 5 feet 5 3/4 inches, and appreciate a candidate who knows that every ruler mark counts. Of course it may just be Dr. Dean being precise, like any good physician, but I choose to see a larger significance.

If altitude is still destiny, Bush will win if the Democrats do not nominate a six-footer. But if a shorter Democrat beats the president, we may be on a roll. In the 2012 election, we may see a candidate who seems to have a firm hold on the affections of a large portion of the American electorate despite being no taller than 5 feet 7 (her office hasn’t yet returned my call seeking the official figure). That could make Hillary Rodham Clinton, if she won, the most diminutive president in at least a century. (Theodore Roosevelt, at 5-8, appears to have been the shortest 20th-century chief executive.)

It would be a moment to celebrate or decry, depending on your view of the Clintons, but at least those of us with vertical challenges would have a chance to dream.

Jay Mathews covers education for The Washington Post.