2 presidents go stumping for their parties

President Bush and his Oval Office predecessor, Bill Clinton, campaigned for congressional candidates across the nation’s Rust Belt on Thursday, probing for issues that could spell the difference in determining control of the House and the Senate in the hotly contested midterm election.

At fundraising receptions in Iowa and Michigan, Bush returned to “family values,” denouncing a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples are guaranteed the rights and benefits of marriage. Clinton, speaking at a rally for Democratic congressional and state legislative candidates in Syracuse, N.Y., pointedly responded to Bush’s recent characterization of the Democrats as “the party of ‘cut-and-run’ ” in Iraq.

For Bush, the court decision provided a fresh opportunity to speak to the heart of a cultural issue that motivated many conservative voters who had propelled him and other GOP candidates to victory in recent years -- but whose enthusiasm for Bush and his party has been lagging, according to some polls.

For Clinton, the rally was an opportunity to try to refute a key element in the GOP’s efforts to retain their majorities in the House and the Senate: the perceived risk, which Bush raises regularly, that Democrats would seek to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq before the country had been stabilized and could defend itself against becoming a haven for anti-American terrorists.

Speaking in an airport hangar before several hundred Democratic partisans, Clinton cited several of the veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the current conflict in Iraq running for Congress on Nov. 7, including L. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Army National Guard major who lost her legs in a helicopter crash in 2004.

“They can call us the ‘cut-and-run’ party all they want, but that’s a pretty hard case to make when you look at Tammy Duckworth

Then he added, to loud applause and whoops from the audience: “ ‘Stop and think’ is not the same as ‘cut-and-run.’ ”

Clinton’s remarks came at the end of a speech in which he sharply criticized the record of Bush and the GOP Congress across a range of domestic issues. He even charged that under Bush, the Republican Party had moved so far to the right that President Nixon could be described as “a communist compared to those people who are running our government down there.”

Bush has largely kept his campaign speeches focused on two elements -- the growth of the economy and the need to succeed in Iraq -- and the threat that he says a Democratic majority in the House and in the Senate would pose to each. But on Thursday, he found in the New Jersey ruling a new campaign weapon.

“We believe in family values. We believe values are important. And we believe marriage is a fundamental institution of civilization,” Bush said during a fundraiser at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. “Yesterday, in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue, a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage.

“I believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman,” he said, adding that a Republican Congress would keep it that way.

Bush spoke at a fundraising reception for state Sen. Jeff Lamberti, whom he called “Dave” a couple of times during the speech. Lamberti is seeking to unseat U.S. Rep. Leonard L. Boswell, one of the few incumbent Democrats considered vulnerable this year, and Republicans consider this race a priority. A Republican National Committee spokeswoman, Tracey Schmitt, said the reception raised $400,000 for Lamberti and the Iowa GOP campaign.

Bush then flew to Michigan, where he addressed a fundraising reception for the Republican running behind Democratic incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow. That reception raised $700,000 for Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, Schmitt said.

Clinton, who has faced criticism from some left-leaning activists for partnering with the Bush administration on projects such as Hurricane Katrina relief, is also in the midst of an aggressive campaign swing, appearing at events for Democratic candidates around the country.

james.gerstenzang@

latimes.com

ronald.brownstein@

latimes.com

Gerstenzang reported from Warren, Mich., and Brownstein from Syracuse, N.Y.