"On a day when Sen. Barack Obama picked up more pledged delegates in Iowa and California, the senator from Illinois told a crowd in suburban Indianapolis on Saturday that it is time to turn away from the "forces of division," and to choose instead "a different path that says: We have different stories, but we have common dreams and common hopes."

The escalating bitterness in the Democratic presidential campaign provided a tart subtext to Obama's speech before about 3,200 people in Plainfield, Ind.

Obama spent much of Friday distancing himself from comments on race by his former pastor, and he alluded to that Saturday, saying: "When people say things like my former pastor said, you have to speak out forcefully against them. But what you also have to do is remember what Bobby Kennedy said: that it is within our power to join together to truly make a United States of America."

While Obama was speaking in Indiana, thousands of Democrats in Iowa were taking part in county conventions, the second step in allocating the state's delegates to the national convention.

Obama gained eight of the 14 delegates won in the Jan. 3 caucuses by former senator John Edwards, who has since dropped out of the Democratic presidential race, along with one won by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to the Obama campaign. Caucus-night projections showed Obama getting 16 delegates and Clinton 15.

With the other six Edwards delegates standing firm, Obama's camp claimed 25 delegates from Iowa, compared with 14 for Clinton. The Associated Press reported late Saturday that, in final counts from California's Feb. 5 primary, Clinton picked up two more pledged delegates and Obama gained five.

According to AP's count, the Iowa and California results give Obama a national lead of 119 pledged delegates and superdelegates over Clinton.

"This is a very significant improvement for us," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said, referring to the Iowa result.

If the numbers hold at the June 14 state convention, Obama will have won more than half of Iowa's delegates. On Jan. 3, he was backed by 39 percent of caucusgoers, compared with 30 percent for Edwards and 29 percent for Clinton." (Peter Slevin, The Washington Post, March 15, 2008)