KENNEDY: Meatball Ron! You were the snakebite antidote to Joe v. Don and their tired brands of crazy… now suddenly you’re a limp dud. But here’s how you CAN get your groove back (God knows America needs it)

America is haunted by the nightmarish prospect of having to choose a president from two dueling old dudes, who vow to punish us all with their weary brands of madness.

One is in precipitous mental decline, the other is a raging megalomaniac, who will put vengeance before policy for “the good of the country.”

Ron DeSantis would be the antidote to the snake bites we endure in this American political wilderness.

The thinking man’s Florida Man would swoop in as a hooded young crusader armed with a 20-point, purple win from the state governor and a post-COVID roadmap to freedom.

DeSantis was meant to be a hard transformer, Ronald Reagan to Trump’s Dwight D. Eisenhower. A handsome veteran with a beautiful young family who was about to be shot out of a cannon and straight into the White House.

Instead, his campaign launched a limp dud into a laughable Twitter Spaces meltdown, and he’s been limping along ever since.

Can Meatball Ron get his groove back?

Absolutely, but it will take a lot more than demoting his campaign manager and shaking the staff snow globe if he wants to become more than the Todd Marinovich of presidential politics.

So here’s my easy 5-step guide to getting this future president back on his way to the White House. But the hour is late and the first Republican presidential debate is just around the corner.

1. KNOW YOURSELF, RON

Is Ron DeSantis the thwarting, economy-boosting author of the Florida Miracle or the absent-minded culture warrior who spends far too much time relying on the sloppy opinions of his data dumpers?

If Ron is the last one, he’d better save his time and his donors’ money and just drop out of the race now.

He won’t become president by getting mad at this week’s Dylan Mulvaney, even if some propagandist tells him it “fits right with the grassroots.”

His economic and social successes with open businesses and schools during the depths of COVID lockdown mania were the ultimate thumb in the authoritarian eye of the world’s Gavin Newsoms, who blindly closed churches and restaurants out of “an abundance of caution.”

Yes, someone has to stand up to the mutilation of children in the name of “gender-affirming care,” but we have historic inflation, looming wars with China and Russia, a desperate need to defend a reliable energy supply, and an immigration system in shambles.

The rest of the TRANSitory culture issues are small, tangled potatoes compared to the foreign and domestic dragons, who must be slain on day one.

The hyper-obsession with issues of culture is not the basis of a presidential campaign and will not land your face on the presidential placemat.

2. CHANNEL YOUR INNER SOFIA VERGARA

The only thing worse than a politician who focuses on the wrong things is someone who becomes a bumbling droner on the weedy things.

DeSantis has a habit of driving the ball into the rough without a chip shot to get it back on the green.

Do you remember this from that nerd party, the launch of Twitter?

“The problems with the university and the ideological preoccupation…those can be traced all the way back to the accreditation cartels…We’re going to implement alternative accreditation regimes…We want a color-blind, merit-based accreditation scheme.”

I’m sure that’s all well and good, but could you please put that on a bumper sticker for me?

How about taking a page out of Vivek Ramaswamy’s book and making some splashy headlines by quietly debating and winning arguments with people you disagree with before pulling out the Advanced Wonkery textbook?

The nation needs a passionate patriot who knows how to party no matter the party.

We’ve had enough divisive others.

We need the equivalent of Sofia Vergara pouring Casamigos shots (and logic) into the eager mouths of friends and foes alike, as she traverses the political spectrum like a stacked and hunted boss.

What happened to the *nice* candidates of yesteryear who were relatively tipsy?

I almost miss John Boehner.

3. RICK JAMES IS ROLLING IN HIS GRAVE

What’s up with the disturbing Kamala cackles?

DeSantis’ giggles remind me of a clown at a birthday party who overdosed on dental nitrous oxide.

Is this a glitch, a tick, a fearful reflex?

Governor Tickle Pants needs to calm this down ASAP if he doesn’t want to be cannibalized by Vivek and Tim Scott in the first debate.

If nervous laughter broke out on the debate stage, maybe Chris Christie would eat him.

And please don’t get me started on the “pudding fingers” fiasco.

There is a report that in 2019 he dipped his fingers in a chocolatey treat and ate down while aboard a private jet.

He denies it. But who cares? It’s out there.

More snack shenanigans and DeSantis can reserve his permanent spot in the presidential graveyard with John Kasich and his barbaric pizza consumption.

4. MORE COWBELL, LESS CATTLEPROD

At worst, Ron is a dry bun in need of a splash of mayonnaise. At his best, he’s like a kid on Christmas morning who just found a PS5 under the tree.

I sat next to then-Congressman DeSantis on the Fox News Outnumbered bench, and he lit up like a marquee when we talked about ’90s music and sports.

He’s into pop culture, baseball, and he has some passions that drive a delightfully adolescent side of him that he’s kept hidden from voters until now.

Don’t be a Grinch, Governor!

And stop the Dirty Harry act.

When the governor uses phrases like “we’re going to slit their throats on day one” and “dead stone cold,” he sounds like a clownish, fake tough guy, not the thoughtful, successful, and passionate politician ready to let freedom sound like a Foghat cowbell.

He adds these inauthentic sentences to sound Trumpier, or he tries to give a puffy contrast to our wimpy president Rusty Nuts.

Whatever it is, it sounds forced and unstable and will make that sweet billionaire donor money dry up faster than sawdust in the Tallahassee sun.

5. RUN AS BACKUP QUARTERBACK

The governor’s biggest mistake is trying to prove that Donald Trump is both the best and worst person in the world.

That’s like walking a tightrope across a lava cesspool while hungry crocodiles nibble at your calves and hiney.

DeSantis voters love what Trump stands for as a fearless villain. They love his pre-pandemic policy successes. And they go crazy when the Bad Orange Man sticks it to the namby-pamby liberals.

If Ron gets angry about that, he’ll attack his voters.

In July, DeSantis blamed Trump for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of The Don for allegedly attempting to overturn the election.

If Trump had “drained the swamp like he promised,” he probably “wouldn’t be in the mess he’s in now,” DeSantis slyly suggested.

Now Ron is directing his shaky rage where it belongs: the Trump-crazy lunatics.

“I think it’s an example of this criminalization of politics,” DeSantis said of the latest Georgia indictment.

That’s more like it.

DeSantis’ line about being “Trumpism Without Trump” played before the indictments, but the administration’s weaponization against the only living truth-teller on the right has changed the game.

DeSantis must completely turn and run like a Trump fanboy, only too happy to pick up the MAGA mantle and race to victory for the good of deplorables everywhere once 45 is locked up.

“I hate him, but I will forgive him” is soft. “I love him, and I’ll avenge his political death” is MUCH sexier to the voters sick to death of our crusty Hair-Sniffer-In-Chief.

Of course, that’s a risky strategy.

If the Trump train just keeps chugging along without going off the rails, then DeSantis’ chances remain slim — but those are the breaks.

Better luck in 2028.