GOP Forces, Western Ranchers Circle Wagons Against Clinton Arrows : Politics: President’s determination to revise a century of policies on natural resources have put a special burden on Democrats running for office this year.

The talk was of fear and suspicion, of threats to rural customs and business, of breaking “the rhythms of spring”--calving, branding, fence repairs--to argue against yet another set of government regulations.

The anxious voices belonged to ranchers, but they might as well have been Republican political operatives. Their complaints form the basis of a popular campaign script titled “The War on the West.”

President Clinton’s determination to revise a century of natural-resource policies has put a special burden on Western Democrats running for office this year.

In his “New West,” Westerners would pay more for use of federal lands. Preserving the land would be a priority and some uses would be banned or limited. Those affected would include logging, mining, oil and gas companies as well as farmers, ranchers, hunters and off-road vehicle hobbyists.

The vision, cheering to environmentalists, looks downright apocalyptic from here.

“Fear is permeating our communities,” rancher Pat O’Toole told Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt at a May 19 rangeland reform meeting in Casper.

Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan warned Babbitt to make sure that “change doesn’t disrupt the things that we value,” namely, the West’s small-town, individualistic way of life. Sullivan, a Democrat, is running for the U.S. Senate.

The prospect of higher grazing fees set off explosions last year in the West. But the fee question has been eclipsed by an even more alarming specter: the disappearance of the West as Westerners know it, or like to think of it. Thus, Democrats find themselves up against passions and symbolism, not mere policies.

They are showing plenty of creativity as they alternately try to prove that, (A) they won’t be presidential pawns or, (B) they have Clinton’s ear. Declarations of independence are interspersed with boasts such as these:

* Nevada Gov. Bob Miller says he had a pivotal conversation with Clinton about a gaming tax proposed to finance welfare reform. The tax, a potential disaster for Las Vegas, was subsequently scrapped.

* Sullivan complained directly to Clinton about Jim Baca, the abrasive director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees federal rangelands. Baca was soon gone, challenging New Mexico Gov. Bruce King in the Democratic primary. He lost.

* Colorado Gov. Roy Romer takes credit for injecting more local control into the newest federal rangeland plan. He convened environmentalists and ranchers to develop a state policy on grazing fees and practices. Babbitt participated in eight sessions in eight weeks, then proposed a national system based on the Colorado model.

Most Westerners allow that perhaps grazing fees for cattle and sheep could be a little higher, or that it might be time to update an 1872 law that lets companies extract minerals from federal land at virtually no cost.

But overriding that is the conviction that their destiny is being plotted by an overzealous President and an interior secretary who may have been a Western governor once, but whose last job was president of the League of Conservation Voters.

“It’s a two-way trust thing and right now we don’t have it in either direction,” said Frank Moore, president of the Wyoming Woolgrowers’ Assn.

Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic pollster whose clients include Sullivan, Romer, Nevada Sen. Richard Bryan and North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, said the Administration is still paying the price for its initial approach, which was confrontational and, from a strategic standpoint, thoughtless.

“There have been these ineffective detours of trying to play the Old West versus the New West,” Garin said. “If they had it to do all over again, these policies would be presented much more in terms of preserving what’s best about the West for future generations of Westerners.”

The roots of the conflict lie in a century of Western history and development. Homesteaders claimed the most fertile territory and the federal government took over the rest. Its proprietary role cannot be overstated. The federal government owns half of Wyoming and nearly 90% of Nevada.

Reformers contend low grazing fees on public land amount to subsidies the country can ill afford. They also argue that some ranchers are abusing the environment and need tighter federal supervision.

Westerners say they are good environmental stewards and fiercely deny that they receive subsidies. Public land should cost less than private because it’s usually less productive and has fewer services and improvements, they maintain. They further contend that Clinton’s plans would threaten rural economies by throwing ranches, farms and mines out of business.

Not surprisingly, the Administration’s agenda has energized Western business interests and conservatives. Membership in one group representing their point of view, People for the West, has risen 65%--to 20,000--since September. The number of chapters went from 77 to 110.

A recent GOP poll in New Mexico hints at the intensity of the opposition. Pollster Ed Goeas said he found an even split on grazing attitudes--but those against the Administration plan felt twice as strongly as its supporters. That means they’re more likely to vote.

The Clinton White House is not the first to antagonize the West. But an unusually large number of contentious issues is in play--ranging from grazing fee increases to endangered species protection to a recent Forest Service regulation, later withdrawn, that limited firearms on federal land.

“The breadth and intensity of the war on the West is much stronger than it’s ever been. It’s a very broad assault,” said Rep. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), Sullivan’s aggressive Senate opponent.

In the past, Democrats have been tempted to write off the West, but Clinton’s situation is different: In 1992 he actually carried seven states in this region, more than he won in his native South.

He’d obviously like to hold them in 1996. And this year, with several Senate Democrats retiring, Clinton needs a couple of Western victories to make sure his party keeps control of the chamber.

It may be too late to mend fences, but Babbitt nevertheless visits the West frequently to listen and soothe. He has adopted a gentler brand of rhetoric. He now talks of persuading Americans “to live a little more thoughtfully on the landscape,” rather than asserting that they must.

But his persistence, and presumably Clinton’s, is intact.

“We’ve got to end this warfare that’s characterized these issues for the last 100 years,” Babbitt said after his battering at the Casper rangeland reform meeting. “There’s no name they can call me that can keep me from talking to them. . . . I’m simply going to keep coming back.”