message together to take on barack obama. and start pulling in some of those independents. gwen: and not so many of the issues be on social issues. >> as long as this goes on, the candidates all find themselves in this big fight over contraception which has the potential to alienate swing he voters and women voters in the fall. gwen: do we know this has happened? >> the polling suggests and everyone you talk to says it definitely has the potential, because the group of women that we're talking about are the late-deciding swing-voting women. single women talk to vote for the democrats. not talking about women in the republican base, the independent-minded woman could be turned off, not because of the issue itself, but why are

you talking your eye off the ball. gwen: if you think the obama campaign is sitting on the sidelines as the republicans are slugging it out, you would be wrong. the president went to separate fundraisers, including chicago. >> you might have noticed that we have some guests in illinois this week. apparently things haven't quite wrapped up on the other side. my message to all the candidates is welcome to the land of lincoln, because i'm thinking maybe some lincoln will rub off on them while we are here. gwen: the president is still down in atlanta. they launched a 17-minute video and dispatched vice president biden to take the republicans on by name. >> mitt romney, rick santorum and newt gingrich, these guys

have a different economically philosophy than we do. it is kind of amazing, gingrich, romney and santorum, they don't let the facts get in their way. gwen: joe biden doesn't use the names which barack obama doesn't use the names. have the democrats decided they can't sit on the sidelines anymore? >> the morning after super tuesday, the chicago campaign was talking about the things that were stressing them out the most. this was still going on so long and romney is eventually going to be the nominee and too long for them to stand and wait for the nominee to show up. they started talking about dispatching joe biden to be the ambassador to the middle class, that wasn't the phrase they used but that was their idea. gwen: interesting they would need an ambassador to the middle

class. >> but joe biden from scranton, pennsylvania. the president is spending the entire day and will not be back in washington until the morning after he has departed, two cities, five events, money, money, money and concerned about this of the independent money and super p.a.c. money and concerned about getting on the offense because the republican field is beating up against them pretty good and they are looking at the polls. martha talked about afghanistan. obviously, the president knows where the public is on that. gas prices. gwen: wasn't going to mention that at all. >> he has been saying let's stay the course and meeting this week with british -- >> you won't hear it much anymore. gwen: one of the first promises he kept and it was to end the

war in iraq and talked in this video about osama bin laden. his foreign policy has been great. >> you are asking the question which is was the significant domestic policy that the president hasn't talked a lot about. and will begin to talk about health care. a signature achievement that he did not ever embrace for many, many months and afghanistan is supposed to be the righteous war, this was his war, that we were supposed to do this right and he talks about responsibly ending it. can you afford not to talk about it. gwen: i also think in afghanistan he is talking about ending the war. not going to talk about the war still ongoing. also on the health care thing and gas prices, too, how does he deal with gas prices. every night we have it on our broadcasts. the gas prices going up, up, up. >> his response is i don't control this and trying to argue

more defensively than offensively and that the republicans are selling the americans on the wrong policy that a newt gingrich can bring down gas prices to $2.50 a gallon. he has said listen to me, there is little to control this. this is a world marketplace and go to go see him in the next seven days going to oklahoma. where is that? the beginning of the second part of the keystone pipeline and he will be talking about drilling, drilling and drilling and suddenly he is the president who is the drill, baby, drill. gwen: he said we are drilling everywhere, maybe not in your back yard but maybe everywhere. >> the video they put out narrated by tom hanks. to what degree are they trying to remind the people how close

the economy was to the abyss and seems like they are going to back to the rationale to decisions that people are questioning. >> the 17-minute -- it's really a commercial and being used by the campaign and released this week and really to the base, to speak to the base and fired up and volunteer and remind them -- it is called "the road we traveled." it's a look back. things aren't dire as they were before but organized around change and achievements that the base of the democratic party is rallied around. gwen: they must be aware of how volatile this situation is, because you read the poll number, there was a 10-point swing at wunt point in his approval rating in a couple of days. are they on edge on that? >> you are asking me whether they look at those snap shots and they definitely look at the

snap shots, but the rolling average, his job approval is like a set point in your weight, 46%, 47%, 48%. rolling average, he stays in that place. they worry more about the unemployment because we could see that go up. gwen: thank you all very much. i appreciate that. by the way, congratulations to martha here, he was presented with the first amendment award from the radio-television digital news foundation. thank you. >> good job. gwen: we have to leave you a few minutes early tonight to give you the opportunity to support your local pbs station. the conversation continues online, including an assessment of this week's state visit by cameron. and keep up with daily developments on air and online and we'll see you around next

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because you've queued for a few hours on behalf of the lady who owns this particular wood carving, who just happens to be your... - daughter-in-law. - ...daughter-in-law. so how long has your daughter-in-law been the proud owner of this rather lithe-looking lady? man: five years. she had actually inherited it from her mother, who had received it from an old lady whom she had known for several years. okay. well, the sculptor's name is on the back. let's just turn it because we can see it quite clearly. you got the initials "n.j." and "forrest"... - yes. - ...for norman john forrest. okay. now anybody might be forgiven looking at a figure like this, for assuming that it's a mam'selle.

but in all truth, this is a scottish lassie because norman forrest was a native of this very same city. and he was quite a celebrated son of this particular city when it came to sculpture. and he's probably best known for some of the-- the relief panels that were to be found on the line as the-- the queen mary - and the queen elizabeth. - oh. so he's really at his zenith, if you will, in the 1930s. he's got quite a decent pedigree. and his work is quite keenly sought after. so i'm assuming that no thought has been given to value. i had thought that it would probably be - a few hundred, anyway. - yeah. but i'm no expert at all. well, that makes me feel as though today is important,

because-- i mean, i'm here really to tell you that if i went into a gallery to try and buy this today, i would not be able to get out of that gallery with this under my arm without writing a check for somewhere in the region of around about £3,500 to 4,000. she may be naked, but at least she's on home turf. here we have a wonderful picture by richard simkin, a great artist of watercolors. there's harry payne, there's richard wymer and there's richard simkin. all three are sought after by military collectors. and this is the most delightful painting because you have all these various facets of one regiment. now often you get single pictures come up in auction. but rarely do you see these multicolored multi-uniform pictures.

the regiment was formed in scotland in 1742 and it was called "cunningham's regiment." and then they were dragoons to begin with, they became light dragoons on to hussars right through the napoleonic wars. after the napoleonic wars they adopted this sort of type of shako here which was... against tradition, if you like, because then they went back to the busby again, you see? well, how did you come by it? well, it belonged to my godfather. and due to the fact that, i think, i had spent 24 years in the royal marines, he thought i would appreciate the military history behind the painting. and he passed it on to me. so i actually then found a restorer in edinburgh, and had it restored to its present state. roy butler: now i would say that this painting, if it was put into an auction

- of militaria-- militaria-- - yeah. --military paintings, it should fetch something between £2,000 and 3,000. because these single pictures - can fetch up to £500 each. - all right. so if you look upon it in that light, five, 10, 15, - you're looking at a lot of money. - man: yeah. - butler: right? - yeah, thank you. he likes antiques. he collected a lot of different things-- furniture and all sort of things. - ian harris: anything that took his fancy? - yeah. harris: well, these are actually-- they're japanese. and... if they've been in the family for a long time, that wouldn't be surprising because they actually date from the end of the 19th century. - right. - they're really rather spectacular pair of vases of their type, and it's the type of work that it's called "shibiyama." and the shibiyama is this decoration which is basically ivory.

and then it is just made with stained mother of pearl, tortoiseshell. it's a very beautiful, very colorful, very refined technique. and then of course, the bodies of the vases themselves are silver and this would all have been hand-raised, hand-made and then enameled, and... and then the panels of ivory set in separately. and this of course is the dragon chasing the flaming pearl... - right. - ...which is a very typical motif both in china and japan. and they are really extraordinarily decorative and generally speaking in pretty good condition as well, because they're often damaged. - yeah, one of them-- - i have noticed there is - one section missing here. - yeah. are the dragons supposed to move or should they be fixed? i think the dragons were fixed, because i noticed that this one is quite loose. - yeah. - but you can actually see a little bit of solder there.

and i think probably the tail or something was attached. - mm-hmm. - and you can also see - there's a little bit of solder there as well. - yeah. so i think that they were-- they weren't intended to move around but the-- the contact point is so small... - yeah. - ...that inevitably with handling over the years they have drifted about. i don't think it really matters very much. the most important thing is the decorativeness of them. - yeah, they're beautiful. - that's really what people go for. and of course the condition, which is-- with the exception of the odd missing piece which was quite easily replaced-- really outstanding. well, i think they are quite surprisingly valuable, these. and i think that these probably should be insured for something in the region of £8,000 to £10,000, the pair. that's very good.