Some pundits are claiming that candidates across the land will adopt the strategy of President-Elect Barack Obama’s campaign where he garnered as much as half his funds in donations of $200 or less.  Something tells me it’s more likely we will see a continuation of candidates raising most of their bucks from big-money donors. Remember, candidates were particularly aggressive in the recent election in creating joint fundraising committees which raised $415 million for federal candidates, according to the non-partisan CQ MoneyLine. That’s a huge jump from the $111 million these committees raked in during the 2004 presidential campaign cycle, according to “Georgia Runoff Exposes Gaps in Finance Law” today in The Wall Street Journal.  These committees allow donors to surpass campaign finance limits on giving to one candidate because they split up a large donation among various like-minded groups that are focused on getting that candidate elected. So the Joe Dokes Fundraising Committee takes a $70,000 check from Billy Bigshot and allocates the legal max of $2,300 to the Committee for Senator Joe Dokes, then splits up the rest with the National Party Committee and the State Party Committee and the Senate Campaign Committee and so on ad nauseam.  In practice, most of the $70,000 money still ends up going to Joe Dokes so he can pay for ads and polls and bourbon at the parties and whatever.