Student loan interest rates was a back-burner issue until the White House lit it up barely a week ago and put it at the top of its agenda with a two-day Obama campaign swing to three university campuses in North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado, all early tossup states in the November election…

Romney on Monday endorsed the $6 billion move to forestall the interest rate increase, even before Obama set foot on the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill. Boehner quickly slated a vote – tapping unspent money from Obama’s unpopular health care law to pay for it – and by Friday, the issue was mostly deflated.

The vote, however, put Republicans crosswise with the Club For Growth, which urged lawmakers to oppose the legislation. The group sometimes uses its fundraising muscle to back primary challengers to GOP incumbents.