WASHINGTON, DC -- Mitt Romney ended his silence in the face of Democratic attacks on his career at Bain Capital, moving Wednesday to counter attacks on his private sector record and describe how they qualify him to be president.

In interviews and campaign trail appearances on Wednesday, Romney sought to push back on the scrutiny, led by President Obama, that casts Romney's time as Bain as driven by little more than the pursuit of profit, sometimes at the expense of workers.

"My whole life has been learning to lead, from my parents, to my education, to the experience I had in the private sector, to helping run the Olympics, and then of course helping guide a state. Those experiences in totality have given me an understanding of how America works and how the economy works," Romney told TIME's Mark Halperin, when asked what specifically he learned at Bain that would help him create jobs. "Twenty-five years in business, including business with other nations, competing with companies across the world, has given me an understanding of what it is that makes America a good place to grow and add jobs, and why jobs leave America –- why businesses decide to locate here, and why they decide to locate somewhere else."

"I understand, for instance, how to read a balance sheet," Romney told Halperin, in a dig at President Obama. "I happen to believe that having been in the private sector for twenty five years gives me a perspective on how jobs are created – that someone who’s never spent a day in the private sector, like President Obama, simply doesn’t understand."

Obama on Bain: 'This is what this campaign is going to be about'

The pushback followed days in which Obama and his surrogates were left virtually uncontested by Romney to make their attacks on Bain, which Romney cofounded.

The president himself called Romney's experience a central issue to the campaign, arguing that a business that stresses maximizing profits is quite different from the presidency.

Those attacks are meant at taking Romney down a notch on one of his chief advantages over Obama. Fifty-nine percent of respondents in Wednesday's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll said Romney's business background would be either a major or minor advantage in helping improve the country's economy; the same number said the same about how it would enable Romney to bridge the federal budget deficit.

Biden: Romney no more qualified to be president than a plumber

Vice President Biden pointedly made the point on Tuesday, when he told supporters in New Hampshire that Romney's time as a CEO no more qualified him to be president than a plumber.

Today, Romney said he welcomed the focus on his record at Bain, but said he would make the president's record in office an issue of equal import.

"What is it that he’s done as the president of the United States over the last four years?" Romney said in the TIME interview. "The American people are interested in, not so much in the history of where I was at Bain Capital, or that I have understanding of the private sector, but instead, has the President made things better for the American people?"

And top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters today the campaign would continue to compare Romney's economic experience to Obama's lack thereof.

NBC/WSJ poll: Obama, Romney locked in tight contest

"We're happy to compare Gov. Romney's record of success, both at the statehouse in Massachusetts and as a businessman for 25 years in the private sector, to the lack of real world economy experience of President Obama," Fehrnstrom said, adding that the Romney campaign welcomed any focus on the economy, even if it came with some negative elements.

"At Bain Capital, during the period of time Mitt Romney was leading that company, Bain invested in approximately 100 companies. Many of them are big brand names that you are familiar with, like Staples and Sports Authority. And some of them were struggling and some of them could not be saved. That's the nature of our free enterprise system," Fehrnstrom said. "We like the fact that the discussion is centered on jobs and the economy and we intend to continue to talk about the plight of 23 million Americans today who are faced with either no employment or they're stuck in part time jobs when what they really want is full time work."

Until today, Romney's campaign has largely used others' words of support for Bain, and the private equity business generally, to hollow out Democratic attacks. As he opened his remarks on education before the Latino Coalition, Romney gave a nod to his odd Democrat bedfellows.

"President Obama has decided to attack success," Romney said. "It’s no wonder so many of his own supporters are calling on him to stop this war on job creators."

ROCHESTER, N.H. -- The lights were barely cool on the debate stage in Concord before Mitt Romney was back on the campaign trail, defending his record at Bain Capital.

"We decided to get behind a company called Staples which I knew you would know well. We decided okay you know how many people work at Staples? Ninety thousand people work at Staples today," Romney said at a rally here this afternoon. "We opened the very first store. I was there the night we opened the first store. We helped stock the shelves. Alright guess how much money we put in to get that first door open to get the computers in place and to buy the inventory to put on the shelves? It was about $5 million if my memory's correct - something in that range."

The story of Staples' success is the most common anecdote Romney uses on the trail to explain his tenure at Bain Capital, the venture capital firm he helped found, but the candidate rarely delves as far as he did into the macro numbers of jobs created and dollars spent. But as his record at Bain begins to come under increasing scrutiny -- from both sides of the aisle -- Romney may also have to defend it more aggressively, as he has done in recent days.

This morning in Concord, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, referencing a New York Times story, accused Bain of occasionally looting the companies in which it invested.

"But if you look at the New York Times article, and I think it was on Thursday -- you would certainly have to say that Bain, at times, engaged in behavior where they looted a company, leaving behind 1,700 unemployed people. That's the New York Times.  That's not me," Gingrich said.  

And this morning on ABC's This Week, President Obama's chief political adviser David Axelrod was even more blunt, calling into question whether Romney's claim of creating 100,000 jobs "net/net" while at Bain had any factual basis.

"The problem is that neither he nor his campaign can furnish any evidence to support that," Axelrod said. " He's not a job creator, he's a corporate raider."

Saturday in Manchester, Romney faced a similar question from moderator George Stephanopoulos, who asked if Romney's 100,000 jobs number included those jobs lost when companies in which Bain invested laid off workers, failed, or were pushed into bankruptcy.

"It includes the net of both. I’m a good enough numbers guy to make sure I got both sides of that," Rommey said, before listing three companies Bain helped launch whose jobs numbers alone he said put him over the 100,000 threshold: Staples, The Sports Authority and Bright Horizons Children's Center.

"Those -- those are businesses we started that continue to grow. And -- and we’re only a small part of that, by the way. We were investors to help get them going," Romney said, when asked whether some of those jobs were created after his involvement with the company ended. "But in some cases, businesses shrunk. We tried to help turn them around, sometimes successfully, sometimes not."

Romney, whose candidacy rests largely on his private sector experience, can likely be expected to continue to pound home his central message, as he did at this afternoon's rally.

"This president is a nice guy who just doesn't get it. I spent my life in the private sector," Romney said. "I'm not perfect, but I do get it, and I will use what I know to get America back to work."