Greetings from RIDC park in O'Hara. Mitt Romney comes to the suburbs north of Pittsburgh today after (presumably) his private meeting with Rick Santorum, which Jim O'Toole sets up here. (Romney said this morning on Fox that he doesn't expect an endorsement from Santorum today, but "you're going to see us all come together.") While he was still in the campaign Santorum said some awkward things about the former Massachusetts governor, largely about health care and the economy, and today labor unions and the Obama adminstration filled in the rest, trying to lambaste him on middle class economic issues.

The Romney camp, meanwhile, is hitting Obama on the latest job report, which shows a bit of growth but not enough to lower the unemployment rate, which at 8.2% is staying at a three-year low:

"President Obama has broken countless promises during his time in office – but none more important than his promise to help create jobs and get our economy moving again. From green jobs that never materialized to an unemployment rate that has remained above 8% for thirty-nine straight months, President Obama's rhetoric simply doesn't match with his failed economic record," said Andrea Saul, Romney's spokesperson.

About 20 union members (from the Steelworkers, Operating Engineers, AFL-CIO and others) gathered in front of the Sauereisen construction materials company this sunny morning to hit him on several issues, including his opposition to the auto industry bailout. The group was joined by the chair of Allegheny County's Democratic committee, Nancy Mills. "If they had listen to Romney on the economy, we would have lost Detroit," she said.

Romney will get a better reception inside the specialty concrete company, which should be packed with Republican partisans. In the meantime, the DNC and the AFL-CIO are doing their best too to pull out the Pittsburgh welcome mat from Romney's feet.

"Mitt Romney is wrong for working Pennsylvanians and he can't escape the positions he took in the primary. The AFL-CIO will hold him accountable," said spokesman Yuri Beckelman. The labor group (which has 900,000 members in the state) issued a long report card on Romney's past statements on labor and working class issues, and the Obam issued a memo (and the video above) on Santorum's past statements on his former primary foe.

"So, to summarize," said the memo from Brad Woodhouse of the Democratic National Committee, "Rick Santorum thinks based on Mitt Romney's failed jobs and economic record in Massachusetts that America would be in trouble with him at the helm, that his time as a corporate raider is definitely NOT what Americans are looking for in a president, that it's unfair that Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than many middle class Americans and that Mitt Romney should release his tax returns. Senator, we couldn't agree more. All this ought to make for an interesting meeting."

From Paula Reed Ward:

State Sen. Jane C. Orie, R-McCandless, who has asked for a two-month delay in her sentencing set for May 21 on public corruption charges, said she will resign from her post then regardless of the judge's decision.

In a motion filed this week, her attorney, William Costopoulos, asked for the postponement because he said he needs additional time to prepare and because he's collecting reference letters on her behalf. Ms. Orie was convicted on 14 of 24 counts against her, including forgery, tampering with evidence, theft of services and ethics violations.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey A. Manning is not expected to make a decision on the motion until at least next week.

In the two-page motion, Mr. Costopoulos wrote, "Sen. Jane C. Orie intends to formally resign from the Senate of Pennsylvania on or before May 21, 2012, even assuming this motion is granted."

Ms. Orie was convicted on March 26 after a month-long trial. It was the second time the case against her was heard by a jury because the first trial in February 2011 ended in a mistrial when prosecutors accused the senator of submitting fraudulent documents to the court.

A spokesman said the district attorney's office opposes the delay.

We meant to write this yesterday, but before we forget: chalk up another win for Gov. Tom Corbett and his behind the scenes negotiating style with UPMC & Highmark over a feud affecting people across Western Pennsylvania.

The low-key public style matched with hard work privately paid off two months ago in the governor's role in getting Shell Oil to place its $1 billion chemical "cracker" plant in Monaca. In that case Corbett quietly worked execs with a Steeler game while also pouring over Google Maps at the governor's mansion. And like that announcement, it's not clear what will happen in the long run -- some analysts say the hospital/insurer deal is only a temporary band-aid and will ultimately lead to higher prices for customers .

But Corbett was still key in getting a deal reached, as even the Senate's top Democrat acknowledged. From Bill Toland:

On April 2 -- the day after then-Highmark CEO Ken Melani was fired -- Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, Mr. White and Mr. Costa, along with Annmarie Kaiser (Mr. Corbett's secretary of legislative affairs) and Todd Shamash (the governor's deputy chief of staff and health care expert), met with UPMC and Highmark officials.

Mr. Costa said the meeting was instrumental from a political standpoint, although it didn't stir any breakthroughs from a business standpoint.

"That meeting helped move it forward," he said. "We needed the support of the administration to extend [the contract] longer than Jan. 1, 2014." And the legislators needed the weight of the governor's office to show the parties, particularly UPMC, that the Legislature was serious about some of the bills on the table, one of which would have forced the two parties into binding arbitration.

"Quite frankly, the governor's desire to see this brought to closure was key," Mr. Costa said.

While neither the legislators nor the governor presented a "stick," or threatened any hard deadlines, it was important for both Highmark and UPMC to know that "we were prepared to move on some legislation," perhaps by the end of May, Mr. Costa said.

There is weirdness afoot, as usual, along the corridors of Grant Street. The latest concerns Cyril Wecht and, separately, the Orie/Melvin family versus DA Stephen A. Zappala Jr.

Wecht was surprised to hear he's on the cover of the supermarket tabloid National Examiner, despite the fact that he never talked to them about a JFK assassination story. Even though he would have if asked:

Dr. Wecht was more bemused than annoyed by his tabloid treatment and his sharing the cover with headlines proclaiming "COUNTRY MUSIC WARS!" "Man drives across America--ON 2 GALLONS OF GAS!" and "Whitney's DISTURBING AUTOPSY REPORT!"

"I've been in tabloids over the years, such as in the case of O.J. [Simpson] and JonBenet [Ramsey], but I don't know if I ever made the cover. I'm always willing to talk to them. I'm not going to be snooty."

Wecht would probably be more willing to talk to the tabloid than Zappala. In the latest twist in the ongoing Orie investigations -- which have included a grand jury investigation of Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin -- the DA is now reviewing a car crash by the justice's 24-year-old daughter for insurance fraud. During the corruption trial of state Sen. Jane Orie (the justice's sister) this spring, defense attorneys grilled Josh Dott, a Melvin aide and prosecution witness, over his relationship with the same daughter.