Is Obama already threatened by Mitt Romney?

The Obama camp has launched a withering attack on Mitt Romney, who is leading the race to bag the Republican nomination to challenge incumbent Barack Obama in the presidential elections, labeling him "a corporate raider" who profited from the termination of average workers.

The open public attack against Romney from the Obama camp so early in the campaign took many by surprise as the former Massachusetts governor is yet to firm up Republican nomination for the presidential election scheduled for November this year.

The camp is trying to capitalise on the attacks against Romney over his experience at Bain Capital.

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In a memo, Obama strategist Stephanie Cutter attacked Romney on his economic policies. In a memo titled "Romney's Economic Record: Profit at

Any Cost" Cutter said Romney's business record doesn't reflect the virtues of free enterprise so much as the worst exploitation of it. The memo was released to the media.

"Our economic crisis and endemic income inequality were caused in large part by a few who put profits over people. "Taking advantage of an uneven playing field, where there was one rulebook for those at the top and another for everyone else, Mitt Romney and his friends made money hand over fist while working families lost their grip on the middle-class lifestyle they earned," he said.

Cutter said between now and November the American people will decide whether to respond to this crisis by electing a "corporate raider" who profited from -- and promises to restore -- the conditions that caused it, or re-electing a President fighting to level the playing field for American businesses.

The memo alleged that Romney, when he headed Bain capitals, closed over a thousand plants, stores and offices, and cut employee wages, benefits and pensions.

"He laid off American workers and outsourced their jobs to other countries. And he and his partners made hundreds of millions of dollars while taking companies to bankruptcy," it said.

Coming within a few days of Obama making his first trip to his campaign headquarters in Chicago, is also an indication that the incumbent and his strategist have started considering Romney as a tough opponent to them in the November election. Romney so far has won both the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary. He is leading by significant margin in the next two primaries to be held in South Carolina and Florida later this month, which if he wins would seals his nomination.

Obama camp's attack against him comes along with the strong anti-Romney campaign launched by the other Republican presidential candidates.

Romney who initially went on defensive after his rivals started attacking him on his record as head of the Bains Capital, on Friday decided to go on offensive.

His camp on Friday released an advertisement in which he defends his record as head of the Bains Capital and argues that he created jobs, as against the impressing being given otherwise by his rivals.

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