Dear Senator Obama ...

4. You speak of the "fierce urgency of now" that calls leaders to confront important challenges. Sounds good, but people are asking, what urgent issues have drawn your enormous talents? It's counterintuitive, but spend less time campaigning and more time working the Senate. Pick a big issue and fight hard for it. Win or lose, you'll give your argument substance.

5. Stop the attacks. They undermine your claim to a post-partisan new politics. You soared when you seemed above politics, lost altitude when you did what you criticize. Attacks are momentarily satisfying but ultimately corrode your appeal.

6. To answer growing questions about your inexperience, people need to know, in concrete and credible ways, what they can expect from you as president. That's missing now. And don't think those position papers written by academics and posted on the Web do the job. They have a check-the-box quality to them. Americans want to see your passion and commitment to things they care about, in ways that give them confidence you're up to the job. They can smell when something is poll-tested and focus-grouped, not from the heart. Also, you can't bluff anymore like you did on "Meet the Press" in October 2006. (You weren't officially running for president yet, but it's still telling.) Tim Russert pointed to the passage in "The Audacity of Hope" that says "no small number of government programs don't work as advertised," and he asked for an example. You cited Medicaid and Medicare, saying: "I think that there's no doubt that we could squeeze more efficiencies out of those systems there. Simple example, we don't use electronic billing for Medicare and Medicaid providers. Now there's no other business on earth that still has people filling out paper forms to get reimbursed, especially for a system that large. We could drastically reduce the costs of those systems."

The only problem is, the Bush administration, building on the good work of the Clinton administration, already put in place in 2003 a regulation that requires electronic billing of Medicaid and Medicare. Since then, all but a handful have been electronic. You won't get a pass on bluffing anymore. You'll have to do both your homework and occasionally something that's difficult for you (and most other politicians): admit you don't know.

You have talent, intelligence and tapped into something powerful early in your campaign. But running for president is unlike anything you've ever done. You're making mistakes and making people worry that you're an elitist. So while you'll almost certainly win the nomination, Democrats are nervous about the fall. You've given them reasons to be.

Rove, former senior adviser for President Bush, is a NEWSWEEK contributor.

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