I've reported here repeatedly that the Democratic Party is riding a long-term wave of demographic and cultural trends that bode well for its future.

A more urban, multi-ethnic, women-empowered society — and those are all measurable, real-world changes our nation is experiencing right now — will almost certainly benefit the party of Obama and Pelosi.

But as we head into the crucible of the 2012 election, there is still a massive, gaping omission in the story that the Democrats are telling to voters, one they will need to remedy if they are to become the party of the future.

Put simply, Democrats need to explain how they will pay for the government which they believe America wants and needs.

Before I explain what I mean, let me detour for a moment to point out that Democrats don't need to spend much time or energy arguing in favor of their vision of "big" government.

By overwhelming margins, Americans support all the big-ticket items that make up about 90% of the US budget, from Social Security to Medicare and Medicaid, to education, the military and homeland security.

Yes, we all grumble about pork and waste.  But that's just the normal bird-dogging of citizens who, quite reasonably, want to get good value for our tax dollars.

There is no evidence that voters have bought into the broader, conservative, Ron-Paul-esque notion that the fabric of government itself needs to be unraveled or dismantled.

When pressed, Americans are even pretty comfortable with the idea that there should be an appropriate safety net, to help citizens who stumble, or fall into poverty, especially if they are children or senior citizens.

And we also want — indeed, we demand — a robust network of police and first responders.

The big question, then, isn't what government should look like in the future.  The real question — and, yes, I lay this predominately at the feet of Democrats — is how to pay for it.  How to sustain it over the long term.

Currently, roughly half of all US spending is borrowed.  Which means that any vision for a long-term, stable government on the scale that Democrats (and their constituents) want will have to include some enormous changes.

Some cherished services will almost certainly have to be cut, not because we oppose them ideologically but because they are just too expensive.

I'm guessing that in the future people probably won't be able to retire at age 65 and draw government checks for the next quarter century.

Other services will have to be provided more cheaply, either by allowing the private sector to deliver them (not always the solution, but in some cases it will help) or by demanding concessions from public employees.

(The era of lifetime health insurance and pensions ended long ago for private sector workers, and I'm betting the time has come for public sector workers to see a big change as well.)

We will also have to generate a lot more revenue.  Some of that will come from growth, as the economy bounces back, but it's also time to level with the American people:  all of us will have to pay more if this is really the government we want.

Taxing rich people won't get us there.

The short-term reality, of course, is that Republicans will block enactment of any vision that achieves a sustainable balance.  They'll argue that even when balanced with spending cuts, any new tax revenues are a socialist scourge.

But that doesn't mean Democrats can't or shouldn't lay out what their plan looks like.

On the contrary, that vision should be the cornerstone of an honest campaign, both for Mr. Obama and for Democrats running for congress.

Some on the left will point out that Republicans have also quietly embraced big government, and done little to bring down our national debt.  This is true.

Most economists believe the various budgets put forward by GOP leaders over the last year would grow rather than shrink the long-term deficit, because of massive tax cuts that aren't off-set by spending cuts, and because of plans to grow the military.

But fair or not, the identity and core values of the Republican Party aren't linked to the health, quality, and sustainability of the Federal government.

On the contrary.  Many conservatives would be quite cheerful seeing even good programs cut or eliminated, even if it requires insolvency to get us there.

So for better or worse, Democrats carry the torch of the government model created during the New Deal.  They will be the ones to figure out how to pay for it, and put it on an even keel, or no one will.

Until President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi put forward that vision, they will remain vulnerable to the suggestion that their vision, no matter how laudable or popular, is simply a pipe dream.

And right now, that pipe dream is adding about $1 trillion a year to the national debt.

As always, your comments welcome.

The next half-year, Republicans and Democrats will churn out a lot of words, wrangling over everything from deficits to global warming. And in theory, elections should be about issues.

But one fascinating element of this year's campaign is how distinctly tribal it appears to be. We are, despite our collective myths and ideals, a society of distinct and very different ethnic and cultural groups.

And we see the world very differently.

One of the latest polls, from the Christian Science Monitor gets at this reality starkly.

It reveals that while Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are essentially tied, the two men are incredibly polarizing figures when looked at from the perspective of our various "identity enclaves."

Obama is winning just 37% of the white vote, compared with 86% of the black and Hispanic vote. That's a see-saw pattern with profound implications.

Romney, meanwhile, is losing badly among women (40% to Obama's 49%) but he absolutely dominates among white women (51% to 39%).

Another dynamic that shapes the race pits our urban tribe (61% for Obama) against our rural tribe (51% for Romney).

And the nation's regions are also dramatically different, with the Northeast and the West solidly in Obama's camp and the Midwest and the South tilting toward Romney.

Obviously, a lot of these cultural dynamics overlap.

The South and the Midwest are more rural than the rest of the US, and many small towns tend to be whiter than urban and suburban areas.

One other remarkable thing is that with all of these patchwork-quilt differences, we still add up to a roughly 50-50 divided nation.

It may be that in the future the rise of the Hispanic population and increasing urbanization will move us significantly in the Democrats' direction, as some pundits have suggested.

But for this election cycle, and the near-future, our various tribes have formed up into something like a stand-off.

Whoever wins in November, it appears that roughly half of the population will leave the polls dissatisfied.

Indeed, some of the factions that make up our society will be deeply grieved by the outcome, contributing to the sense that America is a democracy struggling to find its center.

It looks like Dan Stec will take the 114th Assembly seat without a contest. And that's too bad.

The last few months, the 114th Assembly district race — in the western Adirondacks, southern Champlain Valley and the Glens Falls region — has degenerated from a spirited and hard-fought contest to a ho-hum coronation.

Queensbury town supervisor Dan Stec stared down a laundry list of Republican challengers, racking up so many endorsements and nods from party leaders that everybody else scrambled for the exits.

It was a masterful bit of politicking, but it doesn't do voters — or the residents of the district — a darned bit of good.

The opportunity for debate, and real choice, in the GOP primary evaporated and in the end the party bosses made the pick.

Democrats have fared even worse.  Essex County board of supervisors chair Randy Douglas was the obvious top name on the list to challenge for the seat.  He opted out, citing family concerns and the continuing clean-up from tropical storm Irene.

But the 114th is a big district and in recent years Democrats have fared pretty well, putting up respectable numbers in any number of local races.  Was there really no one else on the bench willing to take a go at it?

This wouldn't matter so much if this chunk of New York state were humming along fine and dandy.  But the truth is, there's a lot here that deserves open debate.

This is the district that includes some of the Finch, Pruyn land that is expected to be part of a state-financed conservation deal in the next few years.  It's a district that has struggled economically.

The future approach of the Adirondack Park Agency is being debated.  The Regional Economic Development Councils are still evolving.  Property taxes remain a vital issue, as do state mandates.

Meanwhile, many of our small communities face big, even historic, questions about their futures.

In a healthy democracy, candidates and parties use elections to offer up fresh ideas about issues like these.  We all have a chance to debate the old ideas and the old approaches.

It should come as no surprise that candidates and party leaders tend to think it's all about who wins or loses, but it's bigger than that.

Elections are a time when an educated and engaged community of citizens learns about the political system.  We chew over the issues.  We get rare, up-close access to the politicians.

It's also a time when the candidates are forced into direct and constant intimacy with voters.  They get an earful and an eyeful of life far from the muddle of Albany.

I know that Dan Stec is making a respectable job of getting around the district, meeting with people, going through the honorable motions of a real election.

But it's not the same.  I guarantee you that if there were two (or more) candidates sparring for your vote, Stec and all the others would be going at it with far more vigor.

This is also a missed opportunity because this transition — with long-time Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward stepping aside — is likely to usher in another long period of ho-hum political seasons.

Unless he messes up big time, Stec will likely cruise to re-election as long as he wants the seat.  Which means that this was almost certainly going to be the last interesting, vibrant voting season for a very long time.

But alas, no dice.  In every meaningful sense, the baton is being passed from Sayward to Stec without a single vote being cast.

I should say that there is absolutely nothing in Dan Stec's record to suggest that he won't do a great job in Albany.   He appears to be thoughtful, seasoned and knowledgeable about the North Country beyond Glens Falls.

But the two parties still deserve a firm rap from voters.

Demoratic and Republican leaders (and the leaders of third parties) have a responsibility to give the rest of us a choice.  Then it's the people who are supposed to decide.

As the Obama and Romney campaigns march into the crucial summer months, there will be a relatively small group of battleground states that will define the outcome.  Here's my prediction of where 2012 will be decided.

Arizona.  Polls show that Barack Obama is within striking distance, thanks in part to the deep hostility that the state's Hispanic community feels toward Mitt Romney.  If Democrats can flip Arizona, it may be all over.  Latest poll:  Romney +2.

Colorado.  Republicans desperately need to stop their slide in the Rocky Mountain West and Mitt Romney might be the sort of economy-first candidate to pull it off.  If he can flip Colorado, his chances soar.  Latest poll:  Obama +13.

Florida:  This is the biggest state in the US that remains in play.  The guy who claims Florida almost certainly wins the White House.  (Though, unlike Romney, Obama has a plausible path to victory that doesn't include Florida.)  Latest poll:  Romney +1.

Ohio:  Democrats appear to have locked down most of the Great Lakes region, and Pennsylvania is inching out of reach for the GOP.  But Ohio is still on the razor's edge and it's another must-win for Romney.  Latest Poll:  Obama +2.

Virginia:   This is another state that Obama can survive without winning, but which looks more and more like a make-or-break battleground for Romney.  The GOP needs to reclaim its ownership of the "Shallow South."  Latest Poll:  Obama +8.

The big take-away here is that despite national polls which show a virtual tie, many of the contests are being fought on what used to be reliably Republican turf. That makes things very tough for Romney.

If the GOP loses Arizona, Colorado and Virginia in a single election cycle, it might signify real long-term challenges for the party.

UPDATE:  Real Clear Politics's new analysis puts 253 electoral college votes as solidly or "leaning" into the Obama column, just 17 shy of the number he needs to win — and that's without any of the five states listed above.  Which shows just how brilliant and efficient Romney's campaign needs to be.  Romney needs to find a whopping 100 EC votes to win, which means he has to run the table.

I've been covering politics for a long time but I don't think I've ever seen a role-reversal quite as stark as the one that's shaped the news cycle over the last few days.

At issue is national defense and in particular the Obama campaign's questioning of whether Republican leaders — including presidential candidate Mitt Romney — would have taken the steps necessary to kill Osama bin Laden.

What's interesting here is that this is a debate over national security and defense.  Typically it is the GOP side that moves aggressively to define the terms of engagement.

Anyone who remembers the last decade knows that George W. Bush was quite comfortable using war-time theatrics — remember "Mission Accomplished"? — to boost his political fortunes. 9/11 featured prominently in some of his 2004 campaign ads.

One conservative attack ad in 2004 openly questioned whether John Kerry, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, was tough enough to go face-to-face with terrorists.

But drawing on lackluster statements about bin Laden made by Romney, former President George W. Bush, and others, Mr. Obama and his surrogates questioned the GOP's willingness to hunt and kill the terror leader.

Naturally, the notion that Republicans might be soft on terror triggered a firestorm of condemnation on the right, with conservatives blasting the White House for "politicizing" and "cheapening" the killing of the 9/11 mastermind.

But in politics, turnabout is widely seen as fair play.

This campaign season, Mitt Romney has insisted repeatedly that Obama is "weak" when it comes to foreign policy and national defense and has "apologized for America."

That's how the GOP tried to frame the campaign.  But the last few days, it was Obama who forced Republicans to respond and react.

And in elections, when you're counter-punching rather than playing your own game, it's not usually a good thing.

Republicans obviously have a factual point that much of the groundwork for killing bin Laden was laid during the Bush Administration.  Wartime victories are, by their very nature, bipartisan.

It's also difficult to imagine a President Romney not ordering the Navy SEALS to move forward with the mission in Pakistan.  Suggesting otherwise, as the Obama campaign has done, is speculative at best and far-fetched at worst.

Yet the simple fact is that this debate refocuses voters' attention on the fact that bin Laden was, in fact, killed on Obama's watch. This commander in chief gave the right order, overriding the advice of two of his closest advisers.  It was a gutsy move.

The dust-up will also likely draw attention to the fact that by any objective reckoning, the Obama administration has moved effectively to sharpen the war on terror, using drone strikes and other "surgical" tactics to eliminate terror leaders, while minimizing the exposure of American ground troops.

More broadly, this chapter of the campaign suggests that Obama plans to fight back against what some pundits, including Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson, have described as an early effort at "swift boating."

Kerry may have been Swift-Boated, but Obama is not going to be SEALed. Republicans are used to calling Democrats cowards and worse. Not this time.

Complicating the GOP's effort to get back on the offense when it comes to national defense is the fact that Romney has no experience in military affairs.  He's no John McCain.  He's not even George W. Bush.

Romney can't just assume that his side owns this issue.  He'll have to convince Americans that he would make a better commander in chief than the guy who pulled the trigger against bin Laden.

This week, Mitt Romney swept five eastern and mid-Atlantic states, including the North Country, putting a final exclamation point on his claim to be the Republican standard bearer against Barack Obama.

But even as he solidified his place at the top of the ticket, he faced more tough news about the fight ahead.

The first was the incredibly anemic turnout, which echoed lackluster participation in GOP primaries even when the race was still contested.

To topple a sitting president, you need zeal and passion, and not just on the part of major Super Pac donors.  Romney needs a 2010-style tea party explosion to shoot him out of the starting gates.  So far, we haven't seen that.

But the bigger problem for Romney is that the state-by-state battleground map continues to look more and more like a minefield.

Yes, Romney has ridden his primary campaign to near-parity with Obama in national polls.  But in state-by-state match-ups he continues to trail bleakly.

The widely respected Real Clear Politics map shows the Democrat heading into the summer with 227 electoral college votes already firmly in his pocket or leaning his way.  (270 are needed to win.)

Romney, meanwhile, has far fewer:  just 170 electoral college votes tipping reliably his direction.  That's a world of difference.

Even worse is the fact that many of the eleven remaining "toss-up states" are tottering toward Obama, some of them by substantial margins.

New polls this week show the President up by double-digit margin in New Hampshire, leading by 6 points in Ohio, and maintaining a narrow lead in Florida.  If he captures those states alone, it's all over.

Even more troubling for Republicans is persistent polling that shows Arizona may actually be in play, with Colorado and Nevada also slipping away.

Romney has infuriated many Hispanics with his opposition to immigration reform, including the Dream Act, which appears to be hurting him badly in the Sunbelt West that was once bedrock Republican territory.

The point of all this?  A lot of the coverage of Romney in recent weeks has suggested that he's moved into a kind of steady asendancy, that a "slow and steady" challenge to Obama will carry the day in November.

I don't think that speculation is born out by these numbers, or these trends.

To win, Republicans will need to do what they've done so successfully in past elections, redefining the larger narrative, shifting the overall mood of the electorate.

I think these numbers also argue for the need for Romney to take some risks as a candidate, showing more passion, and throwing out far more concrete policy ideas.

The GOP is clearly banking on this being a referendum on Obama, and clearly some of that dynamic will be at play.  Indeed, consistent polls show that widespread dissatisfaction with Obama is all that's keeping Romney afloat this point.

But so far, and consistently, Obama is still winning that referendum.  Where the all-important electoral college is concerned, he's winning by a wide margin.