Conservative Latino group well-funded, unwelcome

She came to the United States on the run from a rebel group in Lima, Peru. Right around when Ronald Reagan was president. These days, she's a businesswoman, a mother of three, all grown, and, perhaps as staunch a Republican as you will find.

She believes that life begins at conception; that gay marriage should be outlawed; and the smaller the government, the better.

Now here's the kicker: She's a Latina in Las Vegas; and her political presence isn't exactly greeted with the greatest of kindness by some of the old-school local Latino Democrats.

That's probably because Cecilia Aldana, 53, of Summerlin, is the chairwoman of Nevada Hispanics, a group whose funding comes from a distant Washington, D.C. To the tune of $700,000.

While Aldana expresses no apologies and still feels Nevada Hispanics is a grass-roots movement that deserves recognition, her detractors disagree, and they hope her stay is brief. They hope Nevada Hispanics picks up and leaves town as abruptly as it opened in March.

"I love this country, and I love the American Dream. I want to protect it. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing," says Aldana, who has loved politics since she was a child growing up in Lima.

She married a politician, in fact.

He served as the lieutenant mayor of the small town just outside of Lima, and she served in the capacity of first lady at the age of 21, she said.

The leftist rebel group, Shining Path, didn't take to her former husband's conservative politics, however. One day, a bomb went off at his office, but luckily he wasn't there. That was enough. They came to the United States, first to Los Angeles, and then Las Vegas, where she has been since 1998.

She knows a lot about what freedom isn't, and Nevada's Hispanic population should know about it, too, she said.

"They have another option," Aldana said. "They don't have to vote Democratic. It's sad because the Democrats here think that they own the Latino vote.

"Well, I'm here to say that they don't."

And Aldana's doing everything she can to make the freedom of choice at the ballot box abundantly clear. If she can sway 5,000 Latino votes, then she feels she could change the outcome of many races, including the presidential one.

The outside funding helps pay for the nearly dozen employees who have worked around the clock, setting up booths at supermarkets and sitting outside of the bigger churches and waiting for the congregations to emerge, reminding them of the importance of family values at the polls.

Their paychecks come from Washington D.C., she said.

With roughly a dozen volunteers and 1,200 followers on Twitter and Facebook, she feels she is making a dent in the heavily Democratic landscape that is East Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. Still, she acknowledges that it's an uphill struggle that she might lose.

Her headquarters, from which this message is disseminated, is a tiny suite just off Rancho Drive and Charleston Boulevard. It's a small business complex where she owns and operates Practice Management Solutions, which handles a lot of billing and other affairs for the Guadalupe Medical Center and its four sites in the Las Vegas Valley.

But when she is not working to pay her mortgage and bills, Aldana is out on the stump, not exactly advocating for Mitt Romney but certainly laying out all the choices.

The greatest misconception may be that Republicans are somehow anti-immigration, she said. That's the furthest thing from the truth.

"We're pro-immigration, how could I not be?" she said. "I'm an immigrant myself. The only distinction I would make is that we, as Republicans, think the solution lies in comprehensive immigration reform. And we don't believe that Barack Obama is the answer. We need somebody else who's going to fix it. He (Barack Obama) had his chance."

She also points out that past Republican presidents supported immigration reform, chief among them Ronald Reagan, whose Immigration and Reform Act of 1986 allowed Aldana herself to become a U.S. citizen. Both of the Bushes were pro-immigration, she points out.

"So this notion that if you're a Republican, you're automatically against immigration? It's complete nonsense."

Aldana is well-versed in the art of the political campaign. Already, she has appeared on CNN and has been interviewed by Soledad O'Brien. Moreover, she is the product of American Principles in Action, the conservative group that is funding her phone banks, the countless booths she sets up at supermarkets and advertising that includes a television spot on Univision in Spanish.

But entrenched Democrats in the Las Vegas Valley consider Aldana just short of a sellout, although they don't say it in those exact words.

The criticism is more subtle, along the lines of this: "When an organization comes in with money such as Nevada Hispanics, it loses the credibility that has been established in the community when it says, 'We are for the people.' "

That's a direct quote from Astrid Silva, a 24-year-old undocumented immigrant who is otherwise known in political circles as a DREAMer because her parents brought her here as a child. These days she's busy not only applying for a two-year work permit under President Barack Obama's recent Deferred Action policy, but she also is stumping for all things Democratic.

"For activists who have been involved here since before it was popular to be Latino, this new group is just seen as a plant,'' Silva said. "The fact of the matter is, there are a lot to gain from the Latino electorate, and we are finally seeing the power we possess."

So does American Principles in Action, the group funding Aldana.

"We wanted to use our money very effectively," said Alfonso Aguilar, the executive director of Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, which oversees Nevada Hispanics and is part of the APIA. "And Nevada was perfect. It was small enough, it was manageable, and we all know it's an important battleground state."

APIA already has spent $300,000 in Nevada , Aguilar said.

"All we're saying is if you don't like Romney, you don't have to vote for Obama,'' Aguilar said. "You can leave the ballot blank. That's an option you're actually given by the state of Nevada."

Silva, the DREAMer, said leaving the ballot blank would be "disastrous."

"That's bad for the Latino community," she said. "And that's bad for democracy. It's unfortunate, but Mr. Aguilar has said this sort of stuff in the past. He's told people to 'not vote.' The option is there if you believe in it. You just have to make a decision and do your homework."