DOI: 10.3886/icpsr26144.v1
title: CBS News Monthly Poll #1, March 2008
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded March 15-18, 2008, is a part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. This poll included an oversample of African Americans, for a total of 122 African American respondents.
Respondents were asked whether they approved of the way George W. Bush was handling the presidency, the economy, and the situation in Iraq, to rate the condition of the national economy, to indicate the most important issue for candidates to discuss in the 2008 presidential election, and the preferred qualities and characteristics in a presidential candidate. Registered voters were asked how much attention they were paying to the 2008 presidential campaign, whether they planned to or had already voted in a Democratic or Republican primary or caucus in their state, their opinions of candidates John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and which candidate they would vote for if the general election were held that day. Views were sought on the news media's treatment of the candidates, whether it was appropriate for candidates to show their emotions in public, whether respondents and most people they knew would vote for a presidential candidate who was African American or a woman, whether people they knew had made sexist or racist remarks in the past few months, and whether racism or sexism was a more serious problem in the country. Registered Democratic primary voters were asked about the Democratic presidential nomination process and how superdelegates should decide their vote at the convention. Additional questions queried all respondents on Obama's minister Reverend Jeremiah Wright, major league baseball, steriod use in professional sports, the war in Iraq and its effect on the threat of terrorism against the United States, and whether Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Demographic variables include sex, age, race, education level, marital status, whether respondents had children under 18 years of age, household income, political party affiliation, political philosophy, voter registration status and participation history, religious preference, frequency of religious attendance, and whether respondents considered themselves to be a born-again Christian.
description: The data contain weight variables that should be used in analyzing the data. According to the CBS News Web site, the data were weighted to match United States Census Bureau breakdowns on age, sex, race, education, and region of the country. The data were also adjusted for the fact that people who share a telephone with others have less chance to be contacted than people who live alone and have their own telephones, and that households with more than one telephone number have more chances to be called than households with only one telephone number. An oversample of African Americans was also conducted for this poll and the results were then weighted in proportion to the racial composition of the adult population in the United States Census.
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). An oversample of African Americans was also conducted for this poll, for a total of 122 interviews among this group.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: CBS News Monthly Poll #1, March 2008
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the United States.
description: telephone interviewThe data available for download are not weighted and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.The CASEID variable was reformatted in order to make it a unique identifier.This poll contains an oversample of African American respondents, as identified in the variable OSMP.Variable Q20 contains truncated value labels. Truncated value labels in variables EDUC and Q35 were corrected and code 38 in variable Q2 was edited to refer to the president in office at the time of the survey. Value labels for unknown codes were added in variable Q35.Responses in the variable Q115 (ZIP Code) were blanked to protect respondent confidentiality.This data collection was produced by CBS News, New York, NY.