TOLEDO, OH — President Barack Obama on Monday laid out the theme his party will hammer home at the Democratic National convention this week, declaring Republican challenger Mitt Romney wants to lead the country with failed and outdated ideas that harken to the last century.

Pres. Obama was speaking in a pre-convention campaign swing to members of the United Auto Workers Union in Toledo, a city like many in Ohio where the economy is heavily dependent on the auto industry. Pres. Obama injected that industry with huge amounts of government money in the earliest days of his administration, preventing General Motors and Chrysler Corp. from likely going out of business and laying off more than one million workers.

Romney opposed the auto bailout and accuses Pres. Obama of profligate government spending that Republicans contend has done little to lift the country out of the economic morass after the Great Recession and near meltdown of the country’s financial system, events that date to the presidency of Republican President George W. Bush.

The Republicans showed their political arguments last week during their convention that officially nominated Romney. The theme of that gathering: Pres. Obama is a failed president.

The Democrats are fighting back and Pres. Obama said on Monday that watching the Republicans was like seeing an old television program in black and white.

Those polls show most Americans continue to fault Pres. Obama’s Republican predecessor George W. Bush as author of the economic malaise. Most Republicans, however, blame Pres. Obama for failing to turn things around during his 3 ½ years in the White House.

Romney, polls show, is favored as the best candidate to handle the economy, although Pres. Obama is seen as the more likable choice.