Oregon this week joined New Hampshire in this legislative session in allowing state employees to organize a union whenever a majority sign cards asking for a union- a majority signup provision that's part of the federal Employee Free Choice Act that the Senate will be voting on next week.

But here's the thing-- states like Oregon & New Hampshire have the power to protect the labor rights of employees who work directly for them, but the second they hire a contractor to perform any public service, federal law prevents them from screening out companies that repeatedly violate their workers labor rights. This is one reason so many state legislatures have passed resolutions demanding tougher labor enforcement by the feds, including passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), but it's a criminal situation that repeat labor law violators have mandatory federal access to public funds.

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I think there's a lot to Jerome Armstrong's analysis about the potential limits to Obama's movement building, but what strikes me about Obama -- and I am keenly undecided still between him and Edwards -- is that Obama is working to engage a lot of folks in movement building who are not the "low hanging" fruit of available activists, including the netroots. That seems to be part of his church outreach but other outreach as well.

I read his biography a few weeks ago, particularly his chapter on his experience as a community organizer, and it's clear that he (a) does have a deep ear for the complexities of what motivates and doesn't motivate people to be active in politics and (b) tends to listen first and act later. Whether he translates that into a campaign that roars forward later is an open question, but I wouldn't underestimate him.

A couple of data points:

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Rather than "Actor-Candidate", some reporters are actually beginning to notice that Fred Thompson's day job for many of the last thirty years was as a corporate lobbyist, often on behalf of global corporations at the expense of American workers.  See this Washington Post story starting to highlight the big bucks lobbying by lobbyist-candidate Thompson.