Politics: Elephants down Under

... there is a place in the world where moderate Republicans still exist — unfortunately, you have to take a 13-hour flight from Los Angeles to get there.

Looking at America from [Australia], makes me feel as though we have the worst of all worlds right now. The days when there were liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, who nudged the two parties together, appear over. We don't have compulsory voting. Special interest money is out of control, and we lack any credible Third Party that could capture enough of the center to force both Democrats and Republicans to compete for votes there. So we've lost our ability to do big, hard things together. Yet everything we have to do — tax reform, fiscal reform, health care reform, energy policy — is big and hard and can only be done together.

A lot of us who love your country, said Johansson, do not see where change can come from in America these days. We see all the barriers you have now to structural and fundamental change. It feels like you've lost your amazing ability to adapt politically.

For more, see Elephants down Under by Thomas L. Friedman, March 27, 2012 at NYTimes.com.