Dog Biscuits for the Democrats

The Republican Party seems to be able to get the Democratic Party to talk about whatever they want them to talk about. Rather than setting the agenda, the Democrats just follow along with the Republicans like dogs running for doggie biscuits. [To be fair, perhaps the nastier elements of the Democratic Party have simply abandoned that party in favor of the Republican Party, namely the inheritors of the "Dixiecrat" mantle, which could also be described as the "We're still mad you ended slavery" crowd.) In 2004, it was easy to get the Democrats to talk about "gay marriage" and rile up the Republican "base" (which means the hard core bigots who Roger Moore had in mind when he wrote Stupid White Men). Now the issue seems to be immigration (after a false start with "gay adoption"?). What should the Democrats do? They should just walk out of Congress when the Republicans start this nonsense and refuse to debate the immigration bill(s), saying that they refuse to cooperate with the Republicans until the party in power takes up either fundamental reforms to the social contract (such as national health insurance)* and/or the criminal activities engaged in by the current executive administration, including the release of classified information on order of the president (another impeachable offense, perhaps even meeting the standard of treason?), violations of the constitution, conspiracy in the commission of election fraud, and corruption involving tax monies being channeled to cronies involved in the "rebuilding of Iraq" and similar (though much smaller scale) activities in New Orleans. At the least, the media would give more coverage to these issues, which are far more important than most of the pablum that usually fills up the evening news shows.

*I'd also settle for a debate over ending the income tax and going with some version of the fair tax.