Conservative group The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama to target Mitt Romney

Washington (CNN) -- An independent conservative group says it's going up with a series of new television commercials and radio ads in Iowa later this month as part of its campaign to "Stop Mitt Romney" from winning the Republican presidential nomination, CNN has learned.

The group, The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama, released a web video Wednesday as part of a fundraising effort to pay for what it says will be future ad buys for the TV spot in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The three states, along with Nevada, kick off the primary and caucus season.

While Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who's making his second bid for the White House, is the front-runner in the most recent national polls in the battle for the nomination, he is not well loved by some in the tea party movement, who don't trust the candidate's conservative credentials.

"Mitt Romney's so liberal he's fought conservatives on abortion, RomneyCare, bailouts, illegal immigration, and much more," says the narrator in one of the TV ads, which also uses a clip of Romney from his 2002 run for governor in Massachusetts.

"If you support the principles of the Republican Party platform, as I do, then it's important that we make sure the GOP nominates someone who has supported and fought for those principles. On almost every single important issue facing America today, Mitt Romney has fought against conservatives and Republicans. He's been a liberal on fiscal issues, a liberal on social issues, and a liberal on national security issues," says Lloyd Marcus, Chairman of Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama, in a statement to CNN.

The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama is, as the name implies, dedicated to trying to defeat the president in the 2012 election. The group was launched by the Our Country Deserves Better Committee, a conservative political action committee that's also the parent organization of the Tea Party Express, one of the leading national tea party groups.

The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama went up earlier this year in some of the general election battleground states with an ad titled "Barack Obama's Legacy of Failure."

The group also spent money to run TV commercials that urged against raising the nation's debt ceiling, and put up ads in Wisconsin in support of that state's conservative governor, Scott Walker, as he battled state Democratic lawmakers and unions over budget cuts and the collective bargaining rights of public section union workers. The showdown in Wisconsin earlier this year made national headlines.

The-CNN-Wire/Atlanta

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