I know this is an ancient post, but since there seemed to be so little out there about this and since the above code didn't work for me (and caused me quite a headache because MEL sucks, not to mention it's just retarded that you can't apply a preset to more than one object through the UI), I figured I'd post my solution for the next poor soul, in Python, because MEL syntax wasn't making any sense.
import maya.cmds as mc
import maya.mel as mel
def applyClothPreset(name, blendVal=1):
nCloths = mc.ls(sl=True, type="transform")
for n in nCloths:
nClothShapes = mc.listRelatives(n, shapes=True)
for s in nClothShapes:
print "%s|%s %s %4.1f" % (n, s, name, blendVal)
mel.eval("applyAttrPreset %s|%s \"C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2014/presets/attrPresets/nCloth/%s.mel\" %4.1f" % (n, s, name, blendVal))
applyClothPreset("solidRubber")
applyClothPreset("waterBalloon", 0.3)
Obviously this only works for built-in presets... modify path accordingly.