Lionel Sosa

I don't think that the Democrats are doing anything right. They certainly haven't delivered on the promise of creating more jobs for Latinos. They have not delivered on the promise of bringing immigration reform up to the forefront. They had a sitting president; they had both houses of Congress. They could have done something, but they did nothing.

When I started Sosa & Associates, there were only 3 million Latinos in the U.S. and only four Hispanic-specialized marketing agencies.I had one little goal for our small San Antonio-based agency: to be the largest Hispanic-specialized agency in the United States. We planned for our success and achieved our goal.

If you lose, you can't lead. If you don't lead, you're irrelevant. Winning is what it's all about in politics.

Mexico is so close to us. No matter how long we stay here, we identify as Americans first, but we also have a place for our mother country. That is very visible in San Antonio.

Latinos have enough voting power now to decide elections, and every smart politician knows this.We can't afford to give our vote to those who alienate us, but neither to those who take us for granted.

Remember that our Spanish conquerors, for their own benefit, deliberately created an oppressed underclass whose collective psyche became rooted in passivity and underachievement.

I believe that we are missing a great opportunity. We as Republicans are not really emphasizing what brings us together, and that's conservative values: love of the country. Love of family. Personal responsibility. Hard work. Optimism. Those are the things that we should be communicating to Latinos, and we're doing that very poorly.

When I say that Latinos share conservative values, when Ronald Reagan said that, we mean the love of family, the love of country, a commitment to personal responsibility, to hard work.

I'm able to utilize a lifetime of learning to help teach young people how to apply sound marketing strategy and principles for the purpose of growing the client's business. And for me, that's just too much fun.

When you're a Republican Latino, you're traveling uphill on a lonely road. Still, it's the road I prefer. It has led me to opportunity far beyond my dreams. I've worked on eight Republican presidential races, as well as for some of the world's largest corporations, all because the doors of opportunity, not the doors of welfare, were open to me.

We talk about what's important to Hispanics: education, family, creating an environment in which you can achieve what you want to achieve because there aren't going to be obstacles in your way.

I've been a Republican all my life because I embrace the conservative values of hard work, personal freedom, less government and fewer taxes. But I also believe in compassion, inclusion, and helping those who want to help themselves.