We are getting around to this a little late, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s speech yesterday to the state Democratic Party is well worth a watch, if only to hear his argument for government, which also informs his view of what it means to be a Democrat.

Cuomo, speaking at a policy conference co-sponsored by the moderate Center for American Progress Action Fund and Third Way, outlined that Democrats can only strengthen their argument for being in charge by “making government work.”

“The Democratic Party believes in government,” Cuomo said yesterday. “We believe in the concept of government. We believe that government is the vehicle for community and that is the essence for what the Democratic Party is about.”

The governor who off the cuff once said “I am the government” has rephrased to “the government is us.”

“If you believe in community, and you believe in the collective and you believe in society and you believe in us and you believe in together, well the vehicle for that collective action is government,” he said.

He added, “Then burden of proof is on you as a Democrat to show that the government can work.”

Cuomo is the most prominent and popular Democratic governor in the country and a potential 2016 candidate. As Colin Campbell at The New York Observer pointed out, Cuomo is not speaking at the DNC, preferring to give his philosophical discussion on government and the Democratic Party in this state.

(Can you imagine if Cuomo, or any Democrat for that matter, gave a speech at a national event in which he used the word “collective” as many times as he did on Wednesday?)

But he’s been willing to work across the aisle with a Republican-led Senate and pushed a comparatively conservative fiscal agenda to the consternation of some on the left.

Regardless, Cuomo has taken swipes at the D.C. establishment for failing to get its act together — a knock that ropes in both President Obama and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Obama’s argument for government has been relatively clumsy, giving Mitt Romney and Republicans fairly or unfairly an opening to criticize him for the “You didn’t build that” remarks.

Should Cuomo run in 2016, look for his argument in a primary to be about competency. He governed an ungovernable state, got results, etcetera.

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