WASHINGTON — Nearly three decades ago, Charles E. Grassley was among the Republican conservatives swept into the Senate on the wave that Ronald Reagan rode to the White House. Now he is on the defensive as he seeks a sixth term, no longer conservative enough for those back home in Iowa who style themselves the protectors of the Reagan legacy.
So it was that Mr. Grassley, who often has been at the center of creating major legislation, instead mostly kept his head down on Tuesday, reading news clippings and his Kindle as the Senate Finance Committee began work on legislation to overhaul the health care system.
That effort is anathema to the conservatives who dominate the Republican Party these days, as was made clear in angry town-hall-style meetings this summer. In Iowa, conservatives had threatened to seek a primary election opponent if Mr. Grassley cut a deal with Democrats. In Washington, they openly speculated that if he were re-elected, he would lose his chance at the top Republican seat on the Judiciary Committee after 2010.
As for President Obama, the inability to work with a legislator with a record of pragmatism like Mr. Grassley’s underscores the difficulty of restoring bipartisanship in a polarized capital.
Just as the health care debate has taken its toll on Mr. Obama’s popularity, Mr. Grassley’s long-iconic status in Iowa has suffered. A poll last week for The Des Moines Register put Mr. Grassley’s support at 57 percent, down from 75 percent in January. The erosion is among Democrats and independents; his recent vocal opposition on health care seems to have shored up his standing among Republicans.
On Tuesday, when the Finance Committee assembled in a cavernous room to accommodate the crowd of news media, staff members and interest groups, Mr. Grassley, as the panel’s senior Republican, took his usual seat next to its chairman, Senator Max Baucus, the Democrat from Montana.
But after a decade in which the two friends have taken turns as chairman of the prestigious committee, and repeatedly worked together to cut taxes, create a Medicare drug benefit, establish a children’s health program and more, this time their months of private talks failed to yield the bipartisan health overhaul bill they had sought.
During his opening remarks, Mr. Grassley blamed the White House and Democratic leaders. Their pressure for the Finance Committee to act by a mid-September deadline, he complained, forced a premature end to talks among three Republicans and three Democrats that began last June. Four other committees finished during the summer.
“I find it utterly and completely appalling,” he said.
Mr. Grassley also cited policy objections to the Baucus legislation. He criticized its costs, though Mr. Baucus has proposed offsetting savings, and he objected to its mandates that individuals have insurance, though Mr. Grassley previously has said health insurance should be mandatory just as auto insurance is for drivers. He said the bill would not do enough to guard against aid going to illegal immigrants and for abortions, and complained that it would not limit malpractice awards.
For Democrats, Mr. Grassley’s list only reinforced their belief that he never would have compromised no matter how much time he had.
Democrats wrote off Mr. Grassley in August, when at his meetings with Iowa voters he seemed to affirm conservatives’ claims that Democratic proposals would create government death panels to “pull the plug on grandma,” and when he vowed in fund-raising appeals to lead the opposition to health care legislation.
A Grassley spokeswoman, Jill Kozeny, dismissed suggestions that political considerations had dictated his stance. “He’d still be at the table today if the Democratic leader in the Senate hadn’t pulled the plug on the effort,” Ms. Kozeny said.
But Democrats, as well as some Republicans and nonpartisan observers, say Mr. Grassley is running scared.
“Chuck Grassley is not in serious trouble in Iowa and has not been for some time, but I think he’s a little rattled at what he’s heard at these town hall meetings and on some of the conservative talk shows,” said David Yepsen, the longtime political reporter for The Des Moines Register who recently became director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University.
“The Republican Party in Iowa,” Mr. Yepsen said, “has become a lot more conservative, particularly on social issues” since Mr. Grassley was first elected to the Senate in 1980.
Back then, he fit right in among the economic conservatives who counted themselves as soldiers in the Reagan Revolution for lower taxes and smaller government. Now he is suspect among more socially conservative ideologues who have gained prominence.
Before the health debate, Iowa conservatives had registered their unhappiness. Mr. Grassley was not chosen to be a delegate to the party’s 2008 convention, and he has been criticized for voting for the $700 billion financial bailout and for insufficiently condemning an Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriages.
His role in Mr. Baucus’s health care talks further riled Iowa Republicans, and two conservative groups mobilized activists to attend his August meetings to protest.
“There is so much talk of primarying Chuck Grassley now,” a well-known conservative, Bill Salier, said on an Iowa radio show. The senator’s seniority means “absolutely bupkis if what you do with that power is work with Max Baucus to try to advance socialized medicine.”
In late July, a conservative state representative published an open letter castigating Mr. Grassley, giving rise to speculation that he would challenge the senator. Instead, on Tuesday, the state lawmaker said he would run for the State Senate.
Among Democrats, a former state legislator, Bob Krause, is talking of running against Mr. Grassley, saying it has been “a long time to go without rotating crops.” But in Washington, Democratic leaders say the only threat to Mr. Grassley is in his own party.