TOLEDO, Ohio â€" President Obama pointed to his bailout of the auto industry, which Mitt Romney opposed, as a major argument for his re-election over the Republican rival as he spent a fourth Labor Day with union workers in a swing state.
Without the rescue, “more than one million Americans across the country would have lost their jobs in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. In communities across the Midwest it would have been another Great Depression,†Mr. Obama told an estimated 3,100 supporters, most of them African-Americans, crammed into a high school gymnasium not far from this city's Jeep plant.
The fallout also would have threatened the jobs of local teach ers, small business owners, diner servers and bartenders, “who know your order before you even walk in,†Mr. Obama said, his voice rising.
“I stood with American workers, I stood with American manufacturers, I believe in you, I bet on you, I'll make that bet any day of the week,†he said, adding, “Three years later, that bet is paying off for America. Three years later, the American auto industry has come roaring back.â€
His focus on the auto industry's comeback was layered on the stump speech Mr. Obama has delivered now for three days in swing-state campaigning before his renomination convention this week. He engaged in an extended sports metaphor, to mock Mr. Romney's recent remark that he should replace Mr. Obama as the country's coach to produce a winning season. In the case of the auto industry, the president said, Mr. Romney would have called the wrong play.
One out of eight Ohio workers are employed in jobs r elated to the auto industry, according to the Obama campaign, and the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler ultimately saved nearly 155,000 jobs with manufacturers and suppliers. Mr. Obama rebutted Republican criticisms since 2009 that the rescue was a bailout for pro-Democratic unions, noting to his audience's shouts of agreement that union workers had forfeited pay and benefits as part of the industry restructuring he demanded in return for the bailout.
Ohio's unemployment rate for some time has been lower than the national average, and the auto industry rescue is considered a big reason Mr. Obama has been leading in the polls in this state, which is crucial to the election outcome. The most recent nonpartisan poll from Ohio, for Quinnipiac University/The New York Times/CBS News, showed Mr. Obama in the lead with the support of 50 percent of likely voters to Mr. Romney's 44 percent.
Republicans, in their counterprogramming to the Democratic convention, have be gun raising a frequent question from the out-of-power party: Are voters better off than they were four years ago?
With Mr. Romney taking a post-convention break and preparing for next month's debates with Mr. Obama, his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, took up the attack on Monday.
“Every president since the Great Depression who asked Americans for a second term could say you were better off than four years ago except for Jimmy Carter and President Barack Obama,†Mr. Ryan said. He went on to cite a number of economic statistics from the Carter years and compare them to today's numbers, which are worse.
Warming up the crowd for Mr. Obama were Bob King, president of the United Automobile Workers, which distributed tickets for the event; Richard L. Trumka, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. president; Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association; Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis; and Senator Sherrod Brown, who is in a tough re-election race himself. Mr. Obama had planned a second Ohio stop in Cleveland, but scrapped that to fly to Louisiana to inspect the damage and recovery effort after Hurricane Isaac caused severe flooding last week.
Before his speech here, Mr. Obama stopped at a diner for breakfast with three union members and greeted other enthusiastic patrons.
As president, his activities on Labor Day have charted the frustrating course of a term that has been defined by the slow economic recovery, which is the biggest threat to his re-election.
In his first year he also was in Ohio, at an A.F.L.-C.I.O. picnic in Cincinnati. The country was still losing jobs, though at a fast-declining rate after his stimulus package and auto rescue took effect; the unemployment rate peaked the following month at 10 percent.
In 2010 he was with union families in Milwaukee, another industrial city in a Midwestern swing state, celebrating eight months of job growth. Unemployment was 9.6 percent and with the original stimulus measures winding down, Mr. Obama called for more; his request went nowhere in Congress, and Republicans gained control of the House in midterm elections.
Last year he spent Labor Day about 50 miles north of here in the auto-manufacturing capital, Detroit, at a rally with about 13,000 union workers and families outside the General Motors headquarters. With unemployment at 9 percent, Mr. Obama previewed the jobs plan he would outline days later in a nationally televised address to Congress.
While Congressional Republicans ultimately agreed to extend the tax cuts for individuals and businesses that were part of that plan, they blocked major parts, including infrastructure spending to spur hiring, especially of construction workers, and state aid to avoid further layoffs of teachers and first-responders.
To this day, Mr. Obama assails Republicans on the stump for failing to pass his entire plan, which Moody's Analytics said would add 1.9 million jobs, lower the unemployment rate by a percentage point and raise the gross national product by two percentage points.
