After Romney's statement of support for not letting some student loan rates double, Republicans had to set about denying Obama a victory on the issue. They couldn't allow a straight vote on the issue, since many of their members would be forced by their ideology to vote against a popular program. So they decided to link continuing low rates with cuts to an Obamacare program. Republicans would be free to vote for the bill, which passed the House yesterday, knowing the bill would never become law because the Senate and Obama would stop it.
This would seem to be a good strategy that deprives Obama of a line of attack, because Republicans say they support helping students but only disagree about how to fund it. But they made the mistake of choosing a program which, among other things, provides funds for breast and cervical cancer screenings. So Obama can issue a veto threat and portray the Republicans of continuing their "War on Women".
These are the kinds of mistakes that can be forced when Romney and the GOP are forced to take specific stands on issues. Vague generalities about the economy that echo Herman Cain and Rush Limbaugh work fine when people aren't paying close enough attention to really understand the specifics. As the campaign progresses and more and more specific issues like student loans are raised, it can only help the Democrats.
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I'm not sure how raising the issue of student loans will help democrats though. Obama's solution seems to be "just lower rates more". This will just allow more students to become debt slaves (since you can't discharge these loans in bankruptcy). It would be much better if we had real student loan reform by eliminating government guarantees on student debt, allowing it to be discharged in bankruptcy, and putting universities (both non and for profit) on the hook for selling useless educations (I'm looking at you, "gender studies", "culinary arts", "computer repair", and "creative writing").
If the democrat solution is just more debt (at a lower rate), isn't it easy to attack them on it (since the debt still has to be paid pack)?
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