Take a deep breath and a big sigh of relief, the Primary Election is finally over in Greene County, the state of Indiana and on the national scene.

How many of you are thankful for that?

I know the wonderful ladies in the Greene County Voter Registration and the Clerk's Office are literally dancing on their desktops now that they have completed all the tabulations for the election.

They always do a wonderful job of planning and overseeing the elections and they deserve our heartfelt thanks for everything they do to make sure we are able to do our constitutional duty at the polls.

On a more serious note, were you as sick and tired of seeing Hillary and Barack on every channel for weeks and weeks as I obviously was?

Just think of the money spent on all those political commercials, how much real good could have been done if those bucks would have been diverted to the folks back home in a meaningful way?

How about cutting all of us a check to help fill our tanks with some of this price-gouged gasoline?

Well, we'll never know about that, because today's political scene demands that millions and millions of dollars are spent to get a front door key to the big White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.

With Clinton scrambling for cash, Obama spent nearly $8 million on television advertisements leading up to last Tuesday's Primary Elections in Indiana and North Carolina -- including a last minute $300,000 ad buy in the Chicago media market that reaches northwest Indiana, according to Evan Tracey, founder of Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising expenditures.

Hillary wound up spending about $4.5 million on television in those states, according to CMAG.

On Wednesday, Clinton aides acknowledged that she'd loaned her campaign another $6.4 million in April, bringing her total in personal loans to more than $11 million.

Can she really feel the pain of the poor working class folks like you and I when she has that kind of cash to loan for her to blow in a political crap game?

What she needs to do is invest in a good calculator and figure out that the delegate numbers and bucks are stacked against her and do the right thing and withdraw from the race.

Obama reportedly has a big war chest of funds left and is already buying plenty of TV time for upcoming primaries in Oregon and Kentucky, according to published reports in Politico.

You can also rest assured that Republican nominee John McCain will soon be filling the airways too. He actually caught a spending break with the GOP nomination for the Primary being settled so soon.

How can the candidates justify and the American people allow them to spend millions of dollars for a job that pays $400,000 a year plus a bushel basket full of perks?

Interestingly, Abraham Lincoln -- the 16th President of the United States (1861-65) earned a monthly paycheck of $2,083 or just under $25,000 a year while he served in the Oval Office.

Today, the vice president makes $221,000.

U.S. senators and congressmen earn $169,300.

Did you know that no one in the federal government is allowed to earn more in salary than the president? That's according to The Washington D.C. Job Source.

Back home in Indiana, we can at least for a few more weeks have our TVs back without having to be bombarded with a non-stop arsenal of political ads on all the major networks.

On the local scene, the Primary Election winners are to be congratulated and they can rest for a bit before hitting the campaign circuit for the November General Election.

In this rural Hoosier county that means attending a bunch of cornbread and bean suppers, chili soup dinners, and a boatload of fish fries. And don't forget about the large number of summer and fall festival parades. You can bet the candidates will be there shaking hands, passing out candy or other political party trinkets and kissing a few babies.

I really hope we can have at least one meaningful public forum featuring comments from the local candidates for commissioner, county council, treasurer and Superior Court Judge. The voters deserve to know where the candidates stand on the pertinent issues they'll be facing over the next few years as our elected representatives.

And a reminder to all the "losing" candidates -- please pull up your yard signs. I still see some littered around the county.

Nick is assistant editor for the Greene County Daily World. He can be reached by telephone at 847-4487 or 1-800-947-4487 or by e-mail at nschneider@gcdailyworld.com or schneider.nick@gmail.com.