'Law & Order' Star Urges Voters To Bypass Both Parties For 2008

WASHINGTON — Sam Waterston, who plays a tough prosecutor on TV's long-running drama "Law & Order," came to the nation's capital Wednesday to indict the bitter partisan fighting that he said is "tearing us apart" and paralyzing efforts to solve serious problems.

Waterston urged Americans to join Unity08, a group that plans an online convention next year to nominate a split-party ticket for the White House.

The goal is to elect "a president for all the people" with no ties to special interests or extreme party views, he told a National Press Club gathering.

Waterston, a self-described moderate, is the non-traditional spokesman for the against-the-grain movement, which was launched by veterans of the Jimmy Carter White House, including film-maker Gerald Rafshoon and Atlantan Hamilton Jordan, and by Republican Doug Bailey, a former aide to President Gerald Ford.

So far, their concept has hit a wall of skepticism, and only 45,000 people nationwide have registered on the group's Web site (Unity08.com). The goal is to sign up 10 million with an expectation that they would nominate a consensus-builder and fuel their nominee's campaign with small dollar donations.

However, organizers conceded that newcomer Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democratic candidate, has adopted some of the same themes for his upstart campaign.

"If Obama is for the bipartisanship he talks about, great," Bailey said. "But if he's not, then the country is in trouble because none of the rest of (the party candidates) are."

A panel of Emory University political experts, in Washington for an unrelated forum, dismissed the possibility of a successful third-party movement for 2008.

"I think that's going nowhere," said political scientist Alan Abramowitz, who specializes in party alignment. "Party loyalty is higher than it's been anytime in decades," he said, adding that he does not see the same kind of dynamics as in 1992 when independent billionaire Ross Perot captured 19 percent of the vote.

Emory professor Merle Black, co-author of a new book, "Divided America," said Unity08 has a major failing — the lack of a candidate. "As far as I know, they don't really have anybody," he said.

Bailey said the group has "briefed" several potential candidates but said he will keep those meetings confidential.

Waterston, who said Unity08 was "not a campaign about personalities," nevertheless, was pressed for opinions about his "Law & Order" co-star Fred Thompson, the former U.S. senator, who is considering running for the Republican Party nomination.

"Fred Thompson is a good man," Waterston said. "I think he is going to run for president."