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Bush Pledges Vigorous Fight to Retain Republican Control of Congress

By Adam Nagourney / New York Times

WASHINGTON, May 17 — President Bush vowed Wednesday to lead an aggressive campaign this fall to maintain Republican control of Congress, saying there was a "stark difference" between the two parties.

The president, speaking at a Republican National Committee fund-raiser, left little doubt that the White House would return to the same themes it used over the past six years, portraying Democrats as weak on terrorism and committed to higher taxes and government spending. As he did in 2002 and 2004, he repeatedly invoked the memory of the attacks of Sept. 11.

"It's a stark choice," Mr. Bush said. "And I'm going to keep talking about it because we have a record to run on."

"We are the party of the future, and our candidates will be running against the party of the past — a party that offers no new ideas like the Republican Party, a party that can only offer opposition," Mr. Bush said.

But Mr. Bush, in an acknowledgment of the difficult political straits he and his party face, also offered a strong defense of the war in Iraq — the issue that his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, said was responsible for sapping much of the president's popularity. Mr. Bush said he was confident that the increasingly unpopular war would produce a stable democracy in Iraq.

"The enemy can't defeat us in Iraq — and they can't defeat us anywhere else in the world," Mr. Bush said "The only way we can be defeated is if we lose our nerve — and the Republican Party will not lose its nerve."

Karen Finney, the communications director for the Democratic National Committee, called Mr. Bush's remarks "an example of the president's chronic pattern of misleading the American people."

"The truth is America people will be faced with a choice: more of the same Bush deficits, divisiveness and deception, or a new direction based on honest leadership and real security," she said.

Mr. Bush also argued strongly to the crowd of 800 Republican donors in support of the changes in immigration law he proposed in a speech to the nation on Monday night, including tougher border enforcement mechanisms and setting up a system for allowing many immigrants who came here illegally to try to become American citizens. Those remarks drew barely a ripple of applause from the crowd.

Suggesting that he saw political benefit in what many Democrats view as a political liability for Republicans, Mr. Bush boasted of the changes in the Medicare prescription drug program passed by Congress in the face of criticism that it is complicated and unwieldy.

"I want to remind you that for years the Democrats have promised our seniors a stronger Medicare system," he said. "But we delivered. We reformed Medicare." '