Fight Over Loans Presages Fight Over Young Voters

 

By Ryan Teague Beckwith June 11, 2012 – 4:17 p.m.

Scott Ferrell

A group of activists from the Campaign for America's Future lobby Congress to lower student loan interest rates in this 2006 file photo. To buy this photo, go to: http://roll.cl/cqrcpix

McClatchy: “The political combat over freezing student-loan interest rates is about much more than whether the rate will double July 1. It’s also an important flash point in the battle for young people’s votes. President Barack Obama won about two-thirds of the 18- to 29-year-old vote in 2008, but he’s getting somewhat less in recent polls. And the issue could resonate with a broader constituency, as both parties try to show it as emblematic of the other guy’s inability to get things done.”
Roll Call: “Even if the June recall election proves less than a broad political harbinger, the Republicans’ rare opportunity to test-run their voter turnout operation this close to November could pay important tactical dividends in key battleground states that could decide the presidential race. Before all of the votes were tallied last Tuesday, top Republican strategists were already crunching the data, and they believe what they learned on the ground in Wisconsin can help them elsewhere.”
NPR: “The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to take a second look at how its 2008 decision on the rights of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is being carried out. Monday’s move comes almost four years to the day after the court’s last significant statement on the war on terrorism, its 5-4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, which held that detainees have the right to meaningful review of their detentions in U.S. courts.”