Kudos to the Campaign Finance Institute for yeoman research on fundraising by the campaign of President-Elect Barack Obama.  The Institute reported yesterday that Obama raised 26 percent of his money from donors whose total contributions came to $200 or less, “Reality Check: Obama Received About the Same Percentage from Small Donors in 2008 as Bush in 2004.” The Institute found that President Bush raised 25 percent of his campaign funds in these small donations in his 2004 reelection campaign.  This finding disproves widespread reports that Obama raised as much as half of his nearly $640 million in campaign funds in donations of $200 or less. It’s true that is what many donors gave in a single donation to Obama. But these donors followed up the next month with another $100 and $100 the next and so on. As a result, many donors gave in aggregate more than $200, the Federal Election Commission’s trigger figure for disclosure of the donor.  Small donations and small donors have become less of a factor in nearly every election cycle. Obama raised 47 percent of his funds from contributions of $1,000 or more, the Institute found. And the average candidate for the U.S. House in the 2008 election cycle raised just 10 percent of her funds from contributions of $200 or less, down from 15 percent in 2000, the Institute found in a previous report.  Obama deserves kudos for an incredible campaign, a brilliant fundraising strategy and the ability to get the country involved and invigorated.  But let’s not kid ourselves. The influence of big-money donors keeps growing. We need a Clean Elections-style system as spelled out in the Fair Elections Now Act that has been proposed in the U.S. Senate by Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and in the House by Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. (R-N.C.). Indeed, President-Elect Obama was a cosponsor of the bill before his November victory.