The Benefits

Of Being There

The constant refrain of 'Washington insider' attacks on anyone with experience in Washington strike me as really odd sometimes. Mitt is trying to capitalize on the fact that he never held a federal government job and his life has been in the private sector. He attacks Santorum for not being.
First, that is not true because he was for a time a private attorney and law is a business like any other that feeds people and pays bills. Second someone with experience in both the House and Senate is EXPERIENCED in how it works which makes him about a thousand times more effective that he could get done whatever he wanted to do efficiently- because he knows how legislative process works from the inside. He wouldn't be relying on or be played by the people who do that for a living.
EXPERIENCED is what Santorum should counter Romney with. He served in Both the House and Senate. Not many people around who did that for years by the time they were 53. You can probably count the number on your left hand.

You wouldn't hire a plumber someone who never looked at a pipe or drain before, why would you hire a President who never federally legislated anything. You wouldn't hire a surgeon who never saw a scalpel. The White House is not just another CEO job.
It requires one master a delicate dance of process of forces that sometimes blind side you.
Santorum wouldn't be in over his head. Mitt wouldn't know what hit him and it would take him twice as long to find out.

But Romney was a Governor you say- in Liberal Massachusetts, so he knows how to deal with legislators. Yes, but no state legislature runs like Congress which has it's own rules. There are not even two houses in many state legislatures, a state 'house' and senate as it were --and Romney was not on the inside of the sausagemaking. The process of getting something passed between the house and senate works totally differently. Obama at least was a Senator for two years and worked it from the inside.
You can put Santorum up against that and see what happens.

Being a private attorney gives one just as much perspective on the inside of corporate workings sometimes as a business consultant. In fact, private attorneys sometimes have to keep the business consultant types operating in a legal manner and get push back for it. Bain Capital is no different than any company that hired internal in house attorneys or outsourced legal work to make sure it was compliant with laws, and that is what people like Santorum did. Bain saw its fair share of litigation like all corporations. A CEO is no more qualified to be President - even someone with a Harvard MBA , than anyone.

Furthermore, everything 'inside Washington' isn't all bad and its a bad rap. People still get their tax refunds, social security checks and public universities get public funds. The FAA keeps the flight patterns from crashing, the FDA keeps your food from poisoning you. The troops all came home for Christmas from Iraq. This all happens because of what people 'inside Washington' do.

Santorum worked for two of the best law firms in Pennsylvania and went to Dickenson law school which is now part of the Penn State University system. It is an outstanding state law school whose professors come from the top rated Ivy law schools. Kirkpatrick and Lockhart is now Kirkpatrick Lockhart and Gates (K&L Gates) , which is named after Bill Gates' father who was a partner in Seattle's best law firm- it has a profound international presence and is a top rated law firm. This is where Santorum started his legal career. Eckert Seamons is also a top rated firm which is where he practiced after leaving public office. There is much more to Santorum than meets the eye. He has more experience and substance than appears on debates. He is relatively younger than the other debaters and sounded too narcisistic referencing his achievements sometimes, but he actually has a lot to brag about. And he would probably put his kids at the top of the list before any of it.