TWO MEN ONE MISSION
Charlie Kirk and Ron DeSantis embarked on their respective political career paths at the same time, and for the same reasons – big government run amok, and away from the “first principles” of our Founding Fathers, under President Barack Obama.
When Charlie first incorporated Turning Point USA (“TPUSA”) in June of 2012, Ron was in the midst of his first campaign for U.S. Congress. Over the course of the next four years, as set forth in Charlie’s first book – Time for a Turning Point, Post Hill Press, 2016, Kirk worked tirelessly to grow TPUSA into a formidable organization to advocate for free markets and limited government on college campuses across the nation. “At the date this writing,” he would proudly proclaim, “Turning Point has a field staff of 83 part-time and 60 full-time paid members. Our 2016 budget is at $5.5 million. At the first CPAC we attended we brought four people. In 2016 we had 300. We have charters for Turning Point on more than 280 campuses, and some form of presence on more than 1000. On Facebook we are reaching 30 million people per week. We have a Twitter army of 10 million. Every number I’m sharing will be obsolete by the time you read this. Our growth is incredible and a result of incredible people, very hard work, and luck.” Time for a Turning Point at p. 14.
Meanwhile, a principled patriot, who’d passed on the prospect of a lucrative legal career in Major Leage Baseball to serve in the U.S. Navy, was taking his own fight for limited government to Congress, where he’d soon become a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus. Reserve Lieutenant Commander Ron DeSantis announced the official start of his first congressional campaign on February 9, 2012, though he’d already made his motivation to enter politics plain months earlier, when he published his own first book – Dreams from Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama, High Pitched Hum Publishing, September 20, 2011.