After 10 speeches over two days at the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee, the war proved again to be the central point of differentiation among the party's presidential candidates.

What emerged was a division over how to stop the war, one likely to intensify as Congress debates measures ranging from non-binding resolutions of disapproval of President Bush's proposal to send more troops to Iraq to more controversial legislation restricting or cutting off funds for the military mission.

Four years ago, former Vermont governor Howard Dean tapped into the growing opposition to the war among party activists and turned a long-shot candidacy into a force to be reckoned with until his campaign imploded in Iowa.

Now everyone running opposes the war, but the self-styled outsiders in the race -- those not in the Senate -- see political gain in pressing for a speedy end to the war, and in the process they are putting pressure on candidates like New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to follow suit.

"As someone who served in Congress for 14 years, I know the power they hold, should they choose to wield it," New Mexico Gov. Richardson told the DNC today in Washington. "The Congress passed a resolution authorizing war. They need to pass another one that overturns that authorization and brings our troops home by the end of the calendar year."

Former North Carolina senator John Edwards yesterday was equally adamant that members of Congress stand up against the president. "It is a betrayal not to stop this president's plan to escalate the war when we have the responsibility, the power and the ability to stop it," he said. "We cannot be satisfied with passing non-binding resolutions that we know this president will ignore."

Edwards favors an immediate withdrawal of up to 50,000 troops, with the rest brought home within 18 months.

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack was equally pointed in calling for congressional Democrats to act boldly to stop the war. "I think Congress has a constitutional responsibility and a moral obligation to do it now," he said today. "Not a cap, an end. Not eventually, immediately. Those who voted for the war, those who voted to continue to support the war, those who voted to continue funding the war can surely vote to stop the war."

Clinton yesterday defended her support for a non-binding resolution expressing disapproval of the plan to send more troops to Iraq, but clearly felt the need to tell Democratic activists she is now ready to press for tougher action.

"I want to go further," she told the audience of Democrats who will be delegates at the party's national convention in 2008, as she outlined other steps she has proposed to cap the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and pressure the Iraqi government. But she has so far resisted embracing any timetable for bringing home the troops.

Obama, who will formally launch his candidacy next Saturday in Illinois, opposed the war initially and this week moved past Clinton with a proposal to withdraw virtually all U.S. forces by March 31, 2008.

But in his speech yesterday, Obama was less explicit than other Democrats about the way forward. Calling the war "a tragic mistake," he said, "We all have a responsibility now to put forth a plan that offers the best chance of ending the bloodshed and bringing the troops home."

Delaware Sen. Joseph I. Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned Bush in harsh language today. "Mr. President," he said, "the majority of Americans who oppose you in Iraq are not the ones emboldening the enemy. That's the one mission you have accomplished."

Biden said he would do "everything in my power" to block the president's decision to deploy more troops. His broader proposal calls for a political solution that would provide regional autonomy for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds and guarantees by the central government that Sunnis share in the country's oil revenues. He wants to draw down U.S. forces.

The weekend of speeches did little to reorder the Democratic race, with Clinton seen as the early front-runner and Obama and Edwards viewed as her most serious rivals starting out.

Based on conversations with DNC members and others who attended the meeting, Edwards and Richardson helped themselves more than any of the other candidates. Edwards won repeated applause with his speech and Richardson drew strong reviews for his address.

Former Alaska senator Mike Gravel, the fourth speaker at today's session, was perhaps the harshest of any of the candidates in denouncing those Democrats who had supported the war initially. But he did little to advance his dark-horse candidacy, according to party activists, by delivering a 25-minute speech, the longest of the weekend and 18 minutes longer than the routinely-ignored seven-minute time limit imposed by the DNC.

By that measure, Biden was the big winner. The normally windy senator delivered the shortest speech of the weekend. He opened with another apology for describing Obama as an African American who is "articulate and bright and clean and good-looking," a comment that ruined the opening day of his campaign on Wednesday.

"So, how was your week?" he began to laughter. He quickly turned contrite, adding, "I want to say that I truly regret that the words I spoke offended people I admire very much."