The Center for Responsive Politics announced earlier this week that spending for federal candidates will reach $5.3 billion in the 2008 campaign. The presidential campaign may account for more than $2.4 billion of that but Joe Congressman has to generate his part of the pie too.  Where does the money go? There’s the ads on TV and radio and the Web, and you have to buy coffee for the volunteers and hire pollsters and strategists got to strategize and the computers got to hum and the lights need to light … and on and on and on.  Joe Congressman must also keep funding his national party too. The political-insider newspaper The Hill reported this week that the Democratic chairmen and women of high-powered committees must give at least $500,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Rep. John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat that leads the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Louise Slaughter, (D-N.Y.), chair of the Rules Committee, and Appropriations Chairman Rep. David Obey (D.-Wis.) are all in the $500,000 club.  The article “House chairmen respond to Speaker Pelosi’s call for cash,” focuses on Democrats though you can be sure the pressure on the Republican side is intense too. In Congress, if you have big power you got to give big money to keep your big power to raise big money to get bigger power to … and on and on and on.  We can stop the treadmill with a Clean Elections-style approach that asks officials to garner a small donation from a set number of folks within their district. Once the candidate has qualified, he is granted funds to run a campaign that spends its time discussing the issues with voters, not dialing for dollars.