Can a plan be devised to improve whom we select as candidates?

Mona Charen writes that it may be time to reconsider how we nominate candidates for president.

The result is a carnival that is absurdly long and demanding. Serious candidates commit to no less than two years of full-time fundraising and campaigning. This ridiculous schedule virtually excludes candidates who have important jobs (governors, cabinet secretaries), and it offers unfortunate advantages to the independently wealthy and those with connections to the wealthy, and also to the new mandarin class: the consultants.

The endless string of debates, presided over by the liberal press, also lays traps for Republican candidates and draws the campaign away from issues Republicans care about.

Charen notes that Jeffrey H. Anderson and Jay Cost have developed a plan that

would revitalize local Republican parties, marginalize the hostile press, permit strong candidates to emerge as the choice of the grass roots, eliminate the tremendous waste of money the long primary campaigns require — freeing more funds for the general election, where Democrats have consistently outspent Republicans in recent years — and reduce the intra-party bloodletting that arguably damages the Republican image.

Charen gives a brief summary of their plan here.