"The good news is we have a healthcare plan that actually does rely on the private sector," said a top Kerry aide. "But we need to do a better job of puncturing what Bush is saying."
Part of the problem for Kerry is that unlike Bush, he has not offered voters an overarching theory of government's role that unifies his agenda.
Instead, Kerry is more likely to try to counter Bush's antigovernment populism with populist arguments targeted at powerful interests, such as insurance, drug and oil companies.
But many Democrats say that tying Bush to big business may be less important for Kerry tonight than untying himself from big government.
In the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Monday, 52% said they agreed with the core Bush argument that Kerry would rely too much on government to achieve his goals.
"Now is the time for Kerry to tell people the three or four things he would do differently that would both convert their inchoate feeling that they want change into something more confident, and belie the claim that he is some kind of pre-Clinton liberal," said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank.
