A day after stomaching a double-digit defeat, Barack Obama appeared briefly shaken but not stirred by concerns that Hillary Clinton had stolen the momentum in the final six weeks of a marathon Democratic primary season.

The Democratic front-runner hit the trail in Indiana Wednesday, speaking confidently about his chances of clinching the presidential nomination and mocking Clinton for resorting to low-blow tactics in Pennsylvania. No longer equivocating about the eventual outcome of the race, he suggested instead that it's only a matter of time before his final opponent is forced to throw in the towel.

"The way we're going to close the deal is by winning. And right now we're winning," Obama said in New Albany, Ind., answering Clinton's taunt about "closing the deal" from the day before. "I am confident we will be able to win this nomination."

Clinton got a new lifeline with her 10-point victory over Obama in the Keystone State Tuesday night. She claimed "the tide is turning," and her campaign talked up the victory as a momentous surge that will prove to uncommitted superdelegates that she is the candidate who can beat John McClain in November.

But the delegate math still works against her, and Obama on Wednesday showed thinning patience for Clinton's continuing presence in the contest.

He pointed to his lead in delegates and states won and said his coalition is plenty capable of carrying him to victory in November. "We're very confident about where we're going to be once we're the nominee," he said.

Associated Press totals have Obama with 1,723 delegates and Clinton with 1,592. The number needed to clinch the nomination is 2,025.

Asked about Clinton's claim that he "can't stand the heat" of a national campaign, Obama disputed the New York senator's own political fortitude.

"Nobody has complained more about the press, about questions at debates, about being mistreated, than Senator Clinton has, or President Clinton. And so we have been pretty tame in terms of taking our shots and just rolling with them," he said.

"We just keep plugging away. ... And I know that people like to talk tough and use a lot of rhetoric about fighting and obliterating and all that stuff -- I've always believed that if you're tough you don't have to talk about it."

Before the Pennsylvania vote, Obama questioned Clinton's honesty and trustworthiness, while Clinton suggested Obama was too thin-skinned to be president, hammered him for recent gaffes and personal controversies and ran an ad that used images of national emergencies and Usama bin Laden.

The race may have set the tone for the remaining nine contests on the primary and caucus calendar.

High-powered Clinton supporters said on a conference call Wednesday that it was Obama who was leading the negative attacks and stressed how impressive her victory was in the face of the Illinois senator's fund-raising advantage.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell called Pennsylvania "an awesome victory" and "a landslide in so many ways."

"I don't think the tide is turning. I think the tide has turned," said New York Gov. David Paterson.

Though the only way Clinton can win the nomination is by pulling off a commanding string of victories from now until June and by convincing a tidal wave of superdelegates to back her candidacy, both campaigns claim to be on the road to victory.

Clinton's campaign repeatedly argued Wednesday that by any standard other than the Democratic nominating process, she would be -- and should be -- winning.

The campaign claimed it was leading in the popular vote count. However, their tally includes Florida and Michigan, which were discounted by the national party for holding early primaries in violation of party rules. Without those states, Obama is still leading by 500,000 votes. Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.

Clinton also told FOX News that "if we had the same system as the GOP I would already be the nominee, and if the GOP had our system they'd still be duking it out."

The Republican Party treats some states as winner-take-all, while the Democratic Party awards delegates proportionally for every contest. So Clinton's big-state wins in California, New York and elsewhere would have done more for her delegate count if they were winner-take-all.

But rules is rules, Obama said.

"If you want to count them for some abstract measure you are free to do so," he said. "But the way that the popular vote is translated is into delegates. That is how these primaries and these caucuses work."

FOX News' Aaron Bruns and Bonney Kapp contributed to this report.