DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04013.v2
title: CBS News Monthly Poll, February 2004
title: Version 2

description: This poll, conducted February 2004, is part of a series of monthly polls that solicit public opinion on political and social issues. Views were sought on President George W. Bush and his handling of the presidency, the economy, and foreign affairs, as well as the 2004 presidential campaign and the situation with Iraq. A series of questions addressed whether President Bush shared the same priorities as the respondent, whether he became a war president because of world events or the choices he made, and whether he brought different groups of Americans together or divided them. Respondents were asked about the condition of the national economy, whether the country was going in the right or wrong direction, and the effect of the Bush administration's policies on taxes and jobs. Several questions asked whether the result of the war with Iraq was worth the human and economic costs, whether it was a part of or separate from the war on terrorism, whether the United States made the correct decision in taking military action against Iraq, and whether it made the United States safer or less safe from terrorism. Opinions were solicited on whether the alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq existed, whether it mattered if they were found, whether the Bush administration told the entire truth about the existence of these weapons, and how well the Bush administration and United States intelligence agencies assessed the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the war. Respondents were also polled on how much attention they paid to the 2004 presidential campaign, whether they planned to vote for President Bush or a Democratic candidate, whether their mind was made up yet, the issue they most wanted candidates to discuss, whether they planned to vote in a Republican and Democratic primary or caucus, and whether the current system of primaries and caucuses produced the best presidential candidates. Questions regarding the Democratic presidential nomination addressed who the party should nominate, the main reason respondents would like to see that person nominated, whether respondents had ever supported nominee Howard Dean, their impressions of nominee John Kerry, and their level of satisfaction if Kerry won the nomination. Respondents also gave their opinions of the Republican and Democratic parties, how important it was for a president to have served in the military, and whether a candidate's personal character and values or position on issues was more important in their vote. Background variables include age, sex, religion, religiosity, education, ethnicity, household income, marital status, number of telephone lines in household, political party affiliation, political orientation, and voter participation and registration history.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: CBS News/New York Times Poll Series
description: This collection has not been processed by ICPSR staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this collection in essentially the same form in which they were received. When appropriate, documentation has been converted to Portable Document Format (PDF), data files have been converted to non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been recoded to ensure respondents' anonymity.
The ASCII data file may have been replaced if the previous version was formatted with multiple records per case. A frequency file, which contains the authoritative column locations, has been added to the collection.
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over having a telephone at home.
description: A variation of random-digit dialing using primary sampling units (PSUs) was employed, consisting of blocks of 100 telephone numbers identical through the eighth digit and stratified by geographic region, area code, and size of place. Within households, respondents were selected using a method developed by Leslie Kish and modified by Charles Backstrom and Gerald Hursh (see Backstrom and Hursh, SURVEY RESEARCH. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1963).