With the amount of contributions it has collected to take on challenger Allan Drebin, Ald. Arthur Newman’s (1st) campaign has joined a growing trend of small-time elections fueled by big-time money.

Financial statements filed by Newman’s campaign with Cook County show he has received nearly $25,000 from supporters, more than twice the amount reported by Drebin and several other city council incumbents running for re-election.

Drebin has received about $9,900 for his campaign, but about $4,100 of that total is money he loaned himself for the race.

While he acknowledges that campaigns are pricey, Drebin says the amount of contributions Newman has received are “hard to compete with.”

Tapping the wallets of dozens of Evanston residents, Newman took in more than $21,000 – $11,000 more than his salary as alderman -during the latest reporting period, from Jan. 1 to Mar. 4.

And Newman’s money flow has continued as the election grows closer. Within the last two weeks, he has reported nearly $2,000 worth of contributions.

Newman said Thursday that he was surprised by the amount of money he has raised, but he did not see it as an unfair advantage.

“I wish I had the advantages of (Drebin’s) relationship with the university,” he said. “I think (the contributions are) an indication of the support I have received.”

He said the ability to raise money was “a quality people look for.”

Most of the money Newman and Drebin have collected has gone toward traditional campaign expenses: buttons, signs, mailings and other supplies. But Newman’s lead in the money race has allowed him some advantages.

Reports show he spent $2,000 in February on a Chicago-based campaign consultant, Gilbert Gilman.

“He does campaign work for a living,” Newman said. “He’s helping me do some organizing.”

A consultant in former Vice President Al Gore’s unsuccessful presidential bid, Gilman has been a constant figure in the background at Newman’s campaign events.

“He’s worked in Evanston elections before, but he’s working for me this time.”

The leader of an Illinois election reform group said Newman’s campaign strategies aren’t out of the ordinary on a local level any more.

“The dynamic of the local election campaign has changed,” said Cindi Canary, director of the non-partisan Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.

The change has made techniques familiar in campaigns for higher offices more common on the local level, Canary said.

In the past, an aldermanic race or other local election was a “relatively low-ticket, volunteer-intensive kind of activity,” she said. “Five to 10 thousand dollars would certainly represent an adequate budget.”

Now, in downtown’s 35-story Cook County Administration Building, some of the local candidates’ disclosure reports showing up at the county clerk’s office are looking a little bit different.

The money totals definitely are increasing, Canary said. “I’m not sure there is a norm anymore.”

After an expensive Highland Park mayoral race two years ago, Canary said her reform group talked to people in the community there and that, at least from the perspective of voters, the more expensive the race got, the more negative it seemed to become.

With more money and a more “professional feel” in the race, “the less it becomes about ideas” and the more it becomes about tactics and attacks, she said.

Both Newman and Drebin said raising money was crucial to campaigning.

Although Canary said funding can set a campaign’s tone, Newman said negativity escalated campaign costs in the race for the First Ward.

“I knew my opponent was going to run a negative, nasty campaign and that I was going to have to be prepared to respond. And that is exactly the campaign he has run,” Newman said.

Drebin said earlier that he has tried to run a positive campaign. Whether a campaign becomes negative or not, he said, “that’s up to the individual.”

Other incumbent aldermen, including Stephen Engelman (7th) and Steven Bernstein (4th) have collected far less than Newman. Engelman took in $4,505 between Jan. 1 and Mar. 4 after starting with $212. Bernstein has received $7,630 after starting with $2,935.

Drebin said Thursday that he was facing an up-hill battle. “It’s very difficult to run against an entrenched incumbent.”

But he said his support among students, whom he thought he could reach with “better ways” of campaigning than costly mailings, could help to weaken Newman’s money advantage.