It's relationships, to some extent, 75% relationships, and it's also 25% knowledge of the process.
The history of cooling-off periods is that they don't want people to sell the insider knowledge they've had, immediately having been in government. I feel that a cooling-off period is necessary at some point. We all use our relationships in life to get ahead in many ways, so we can't penalize people for having relationships, but you have to find the line where private interest is not trumping public interest. Obviously the difference between public office and other aspects of life is that you're affecting public policy. So you don't want private interest trumping public interest, and you want to make sure that public policy is always done with the public interest in mind.
Am I not addressing your question?