Democrats set up Iowa war room to direct attacks against Romney

The Democratic National Committee has set up a war room in Iowa with its main focus on Mitt Romney, who is looking more and more likely to win the Republican nomination.

Dems have long focused their fire on the former Massachusetts governor, and the lead-up to Tuesday's Iowa caucuses has been no exception.

Their attack in the early-voting state highlighted Romney's business experience, which the former governor has made a central selling point of his campaign, and is likely a preview of their general election strategy.

The DNC brought Randy Johnson to Iowa on Sunday to discuss how he was laid off from his Indiana factory job after Romney's company, Bain Capital, bought the plant in the early 1990s.

"I really feel he didn’t care about the workers there,” Johnson said, according to reports. “It was all about profit before people.”

Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the DNC, kept up the message, telling MSNBC on Monday: "Mitt Romney would have you believe that he was doing something in the private sector akin to what his father was doing: making cars. He wasn’t. He was buying and selling companies and he was making money no matter what it took. If that meant bankrupting them and that made Bain Capital money, well, that was just fine. If it meant laying off workers or outsourcing jobs, that was just fine."

Romney has said in the past that Bain Capital helped create more than 100,000 jobs because of investments it made but acknowledged there were some layoffs to fix troubled companies.

The attacks continued Wednesday when the DNC released a Web video called "Mitt Fits," showing what it called Romney's "fits" during the primary campaign.

Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul dismissed the Democratic attacks, telling The New York Times, "President Obama and his cronies know that if they have to face Mitt Romney in the general election, they are going to lose, which is why they continue their ‘kill Romney’ strategy."

The Democratic attacks come as polls show Romney near the top of the Iowa field and leading in New Hampshire, the next state to vote.

The DNC has set up a war room in the Renaissance Des Moines Savery Hotel and have vowed to hold a daily press conference on the race.

"Every time Mitt Romney opens his mouth to attack the president, Democrats will be immediately available to respond and let the people of Iowa know who Mitt Romney really is," DNC spokeswoman Melanie Roussell told CNN on Monday.

With President Obama on the ballot, Democrats can concentrate on the Republican race and directing their attacks toward who they believe Obama will face in the general election.

Their Iowa attacks began in earnest a few weeks ago, when Vice President Biden penned an op-ed in The Des Moines Register, the state's most-read newspaper, to attack Romney's economic plan. Polls show voters cite the economy as their No. 1 concern.

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