In 2006, a crumbling GOP majority in Congress proposed a series of measures with no hope of passage, but which were designed to stir up the Republican voter base. In the Senate, there was a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. In the House, there was a bill to prevent federal courts from ruling the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. Democrats, in contrast, talked about issues people were actually concerned about: A war that was going badly, an economy that was weakening, and the multitude of GOP scandals. The Republican attempt to change the subject of the campaign failed to stave off catastrophe for the party in the midterm elections.

In 2010, Democrats are doing what Republicans did four years ago. This week, they held a predictably futile vote on the Defense Department’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for homosexuals in the military service. Democrats also rolled into the same vote the Dream Act. That’s the Democratic proposal that grants an amnesty to certain illegal immigrants attending college here and allows their schools to admit them at a tuition rate that is lower than the out-of-state rate charged to American citizens. These measures are strictly designed to energize the Democrats’ left-wing base in an election year. The Dream Act, in particular, will likely be touted in a series of Spanish-language television ads for Democrats in Western states.