President Clinton barnstormed New York State yesterday to campaign for Democrats on his wife’s 59th birthday, saying it is time to get remove the “right wing” faction of the Republican Party from control in Washington.

After stops in Albany, Syracuse, and Farmingdale, Long Island, during the day, Mr. Clinton joined Senator Clinton for a birthday fund-raising bash at Tavern on the Green in Central Park, where the least expensive tickets were said to be selling for $1,000.

The campaigning whirlwind and the combined Clinton star power was a taste of what could be on tap if Mrs. Clinton runs for president in 2008. The fund-raiser, which featured the pop band the Fray, suggested Mrs. Clinton is looking past the November 7 election.

New York’s junior senator has raised nearly $38 million for her reelection bid against her little-known Republican challenger, John Spencer, and political analysts say she can stop spending money and still win in a landslide. A professor of public affairs at Baruch College, Douglas Muzzio, said “she could give her opponent a few million dollars and still win in a landslide.”

Still, more than 1,000 supporters packed a tent at Tavern on the Green, where black-and-white headshots of Mrs. Clinton were placed on every chair and displayed on two large screens.

Mrs. Clinton told the crowd that the Bush administration has made a “concerted effort to turn back the progress of the Clinton presidency and I took that personally.”

She added: “I hope the people won’t put up with the arrogance and incompetence, a particularly lethal combination.”

Mr. Clinton said he was thinking he should give his wife a romantic birthday gift, but instead she sent him around the state to campaign for fellow Democrats. So yesterday morning he went upstate to stump for Kirsten Gillibrand, who is challenging Rep. John Sweeney, a Republican.

In talking about the Iraq war last night, he said: “They call us the cut and run crowd just because we’re the stop and think crowd.”

At an airport hangar in Farmingdale a few hours earlier, Mr. Clinton told a crowd of a few hundred people that the country needed a new course in Iraq and should beef up its operations in Afghanistan.

He said big wins for Mrs. Clinton and others Democrats would send a message to the Republicans who are “running the government for special interests” and using “ideology to divide people.”

“It’s really just a very narrow strip of the Republican Party,” Mr. Clinton said. “The most right-wing, ideological part of the party has been in control of the whole shebang.”

Mr. Clinton said the low-key Long Island crowd, which had waited almost two hours before he arrived, was reflective of the mood in the country. “The sound of this silence means that people know something’s not right in our national discourse,” he said.

With 12 days until the midterm elections, the Clintons have been out in force campaigning for other candidates. Mr. Clinton said he has been to 27 states. He said Republicans who believe those who disagree with them want to “cut and run” in Iraq should talk to Democrat Tammy Duckworth, who is running for Congress in Illinois. She lost both of her legs when her helicopter was shot down while she was serving in Baghdad.

After Mr. Clinton’s speech, a retired teacher from Huntington, Long Island, Patricia Keany, said it would be “fabulous” to have the Clinton team campaigning together in 2008. “It would be an amazing event for American history,” she said.

Political analysts say the Clinton-Clinton combination would undoubtedly be thrilling to some, but would make the pair an even more polarizing force to others.

Last night, before the lights were dimmed and the crowd sang “Happy Birthday,” the former president said the best birthday gift for his wife would be victory for Democrats in the upcoming elections.