Grassley caught between the right and a hard place

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who until this month was a major player in the healthcare debate, is feeling the political plates shift beneath his feet.
 
Back home, according to the Des Moines Register, his support is tanking because of his role in the bipartisan negotiations on healthcare. What was a 75 percent approval rating in January, his norm as he has been an enormously popular figure, is now down to 57 percent. Conservatives are mad at him for working with Democrats on healthcare reform, but the voters he is losing in significant numbers are the independents and Democrats who changed their minds after Grassley suddenly joined the "death panels" brigade in August. What seemed an abrupt reversal for someone like Grassley — who has worked on major bipartisan legislation and never been one to demagogue — damaged him with voters outside his party but seemed to have fended off a primary challenge from the right ... at least for now.

 
To know just how much things have changed since the days when the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) habitually worked with Republicans and Grassley did the same with Democrats, read the piece on Grassley in The New York Times. You will realize why Grassley literally cannot win for losing. Then read Gerald Seib's great piece from last month in The Wall Street Journal about where all the dealmakers have gone. Seib notes that Sen. Bob Bennett (R) of Utah is under attack from the Club for Growth for working with Democrats on healthcare reform.
 
Sorry to lament the new reality, but this is a shame.
 

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