LA CROSSE, Wis. — Wading into presidential politics, President Barack Obama on Thursday promoted his brand of middle-class economics by drawing sharp contrasts with “mean” Republicans in a state whose GOP governor was preparing to enter the vast 2016 presidential field.

“They’re good people,” Obama said of Republicans. “It’s just their ideas are bad.”

Obama leveled some of his sharpest criticism of Republicans, who disagree with him on most matters, on the issue of health care exactly one week after the Supreme Court upheld a key component of the law and Obama declared it “here to stay.”

Republicans in Congress have cast dozens of votes to repeal the law, and they have vowed to keep trying.

“Every single one of them is still obsessed with repealing the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that by every measure it’s working,” Obama said. “It just seems a little mean to say that you don’t want to provide coverage” to millions of people who’ve gained it under the law “and you got nothing to replace it with.”

“That’s a bad idea,” the president said.

Republicans countered that Obama was resorting to attacks because he’s the one short on good ideas.

“It’s no surprise all President Obama has left are partisan attacks after spending the last six and a half years presiding over the weakest economic recovery in modern history and a declining middle class,” Republican Party spokesman Michael Short said.

Obama traveled to Wisconsin to tout a Labor Department proposal that would make more salaried workers eligible for overtime pay. The move is strongly supported by organized labor, a traditional Democratic ally that parted with Obama over his push for a free-trade pact with Asia-Pacific countries.