I’ve often thought that if America's minorities - Asians, Latinos, African Americans, Arabs, Jews, and Native Americans - were to take a blind “taste” test on the values and views of both the Republican and Democratic Party, that a significant number of them would align themselves with the general principles of the Republican Party. Minorities in general tend to embrace traditional values of family, religion and employing the right to work ethic that allows them to achieve the American dream, all values that are recognized as more conservative or Republican. Over the last twenty five years of working with the minority community in government, political campaigns, and business in Washington, DC and around the country, I have seen this theory confirmed over and over again. There are Republican and Republican leaning minorities from every walk of life and in every area of the country. However, there is a false perception, in large part because of lazy and misinformed media coverage, that these Americans do not exist. It is important to note here that minorities have been involved in the development of the United States of America from its inception and have earned the right of full participation in the American political process and to align or not align with any political party. African Americans, for example, had an appreciable presence in the Revolutionary War. In fact, the first person to die in the Boston Massacre, regarded as the first critical event in the American effort to separate from the British, was a black seaman: Crispus Attucks. About 180,000 black men served as soldiers in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. This was about 10 percent of the total Union fighting force. Around 90,000—were former slaves from the Confederate states. During the First World War the US went to war with both a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual army. During World War II, 16 million ethnic minority men and women served in the US Armed Forces and included African Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Latinos, American Indians, and Filipinos. Ever increasing numbers of minorities served in the Korean, Vietnam and all other war efforts over the last twenty five years. As these facts clearly demonstrate, American minority's right to full participation in the political process has been earned. The point here is that the political points of view of America's minority population have been distorted. There are many more Republican and Republican leaning minorities than are being acknowledged by the political parties and the media today. This false image of minorities and their political views has permeated the highest echelons of both the Republican and Democratic parties. The Democratic Party thinks that it has the minority vote locked up and the Republican Party believes that it has little chance of securing it. These false beliefs define how the parties direct their funding. Both the Democratic Party, being convinced that they have the minority vote sewn up, and the Republicans, who think that there is little chance of finding minorities who will vote Republican, allocate a relatively small fraction of resources for comprehensive inclusion of minorities in the political process. But, it is the Republican Party that suffers most from these false assumptions regarding today’s American minority population. The Republican Party has come to believe its own bad press. As a result, Republican officials continue to respond “we can’t find any” when asked why there aren't more minorities in Republican Party and campaign leadership positions. The truth is that they CAN’T find any minorities for Republican leadership positions because they continue to believe that minority Republicans don’t exist. It’s a political “catch-22”. So, the Republican establishment continues to accept and believe the media branding that they are the party of rich, old, white males. Now, rich, old, white males are an essential part of the process. But, there are Republican and Republican leaning Americans today from every ethnic background, culture, and age group, who desire to get involved in the Republican political process and are just waiting for an invitation to the party. I know this because I am one of those people who lives, eats, breathes and creates business everyday with these Republican and Republican leaning minority citizens. So many of these amazingly talented individuals were being left out and disenfranchised from the political process that we were compelled to start the Empowering America PAC (EAPAC) to give them a voice of their own. We also recognized that the Republican Party and the country were being deprived of this talent. EAPAC does not recruit minority Republicans but simply shines a light on them. We give them a place where likeminded minorities, majorities, women, and millennials can meet, exchange ideas, and get involved in the political process. You can see photos of some of our members at our May 2015 kickoff reception at our Facebook page.

Republican leaders are pleasantly surprised when they meet the members of EAPAC. In direct and vivid fashion, we expose the myth that minorities are all Democrats and reveal the truth that minorities and young people are diverse in their political views and want to be involved at all levels of both the Democratic and Republican Party. The Republican Party does not have to manufacture minority supporters, leaders, and talent. They already exist. They need merely to stop accepting the media hype, open their eyes, see the truth, and embrace it.