National Recovery In Sight

For confessing to personal tragedies and traumas during this year's presidential campaign, Bill Clinton and Al Gore have been mocked as ''the dysfunctional ticket.'' But they've got Stuart Smalley's vote. A self-help, 12-step-program junkie, Smalley, of course, is Al Franken's popular Saturday Night Live character, whose ''daily affirmations'' have just been published as a book, I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!.

Franken, 41, who has also been covering the campaign as Comedy Central's chief political correspondent, says Smalley likes the Democrats because of their history of codependency: ''There was Michael Dukakis and Kitty. Then Bill Clinton talked about his alcoholic father and his brother's substance abuse at the convention.''

Smalley is apolitical, Franken insists, but he can't help noticing that Ross Perot has ''a bit of a hero complex'' and that George Bush and Dan Quayle are ''rage-aholics.'' Clinton, ''a recovering adult child,'' is his favorite dysfunctional Democrat. Why? ''He's the first one who's not in denial.'' And (as Smalley would say) that's okay!