-- JERRY JOHNSON, Kennewick

Good grief, Charlie Brown! It's finally over. What a relief to no longer see or hear all the negative campaign ads. I would venture that I am not alone in being ready to see the normal ads on TV instead of the political junk, even though most ads are inane.

It seems that the campaigning has been going on forever. I was reading an item from the Center for Responsive Politics (nonpartisan, nonprofit) that noted the 2012 election will be the most expensive in U. S. history; the spending is estimated to reach $6 billion. This is totally ridiculous!

I am beginning to think that our elections should have a time limit for the whole process, similar to some of the European countries. They seem to do just fine with such a setup. Maybe we should also have a spending limit, but I guess that's not the way in our society. Just think what several billion dollars could do to benefit others rather than the ad agencies and the media. With a few billion we certainly could provide more aid for our veterans for health care and job training, or we could help all those farmers who lost everything in this year's drought, or for more education, and so on.

I am reminded of a Pogo statement: "We have met the enemy and he is us." It's time that we need to do some reforms to the election process.