Lemme see, the pay is $174k, so
what does it cost to get elected (under the status quo)?
Quote:
The average price of winning or holding on to a six-year term in the U.S. Senate averaged $10,476,451 in the 2012 election cycle.
Slightly less pricey, obtaining or being re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives cost an average of $1,689,580.
In effect, that means that the winning Senate candidates needed to raise an average of $14,351 every day between Jan. 1 2010 and election day, 2012 in order to pull of a win, while the victorious House members raised $2.315 per day.
?They?re spending more of their time fundraising than making actual laws,? MapLight President Daniel Newman told the Daily News. ?They?ve become high priced telemarketers.?
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2008 Stats:
Quote:
In 93 percent of House of Representatives races, and 94 percent of Senate races that had been decided by mid-day Nov. 5, the candidate who spent the most money ended up winning, according to a post-election analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The findings are based on candidates' spending through Oct. 15, as reported to the Federal Election Commission.
Continuing a trend seen election cycle after election cycle, the biggest spender was victorious in 397 of 426 decided House races and 30 of 32 settled Senate races. On Election Day 2006, top spenders won 94 percent of House races and 73 percent of Senate races. In 2004, 98 percent of House seats went to the biggest spender, as did 88 percent of Senate seats.
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In light of the SCOTUS Citizens United ruling, which eliminated campaign reform laws designed to ensure that elections are not unduly influenced by wealthy individuals and special interest groups, and the most recent McCutcheon decision by the Supreme Court to further gut election campaign finance reform,
I believe it is important to support publicly financed elections, with a level playing field for getting out the message/vote. 
Some public campaign finance resource sites:
http://www.publicampaign.org/home
http://www.DemocracyIsForPeople.org/
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=183
ADG