DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03711
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #1, November 2002
title: Archival Version

description: This poll is 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. Respondents were asked to give their
opinions of President George W. Bush and his handling of the
presidency, foreign policy, and the economy. In addition, respondents
were asked to give their opinions of the current economy, and whether
it was getting better or worse. Respondents were asked to rate the
Democratic and Republican parties as favorable or unfavorable, to
indicate whether they believed that Democrats or Republicans had clear
plans for the United States and whether there were differences in what
each party stood for, and to specify the most important difference
between the two parties. Respondents were asked if they voted for
United States House of Representatives, what issue was the most
important in deciding their vote for House representatives, whether
their vote for Congress was a vote for or against President Bush and
his policies, whether they would vote for President Bush again in
2004, whether the Democrats should nominate Al Gore, whether they were
pleased or disappointed by the outcome of the November elections, and
whether it was better or worse to have a president from the same
political party that controlled Congress. Respondents were asked to
give their opinions on Republicans' control of Congress: whether the
United States would be more secure from terrorist attacks, whether the
economy would improve, whether taxes would increase or decrease,
whether the respondents' families' financial situations would improve,
whether big business would have more influence in Washington, whether
federal courts would be more conservative, how likely war in Iraq was
a result of Republican control in Congress, and whether environmental
problems would improve. Respondents were asked how much they believed
President Bush cared about their needs and problems and those of
Blacks, whether they had confidence in President Bush to deal with an
international crisis and the economy, whether his political views were
liberal, moderate, or conservative, and whether the religious right
had too much or too little influence on the Bush administration.
Respondents were asked to give their opinions on tax issues,
particularly on: whether the tax cuts were a good idea, whether the
tax cuts made a difference in the amount of money retained after
taxes, whether they believed the government could reduce the federal
budget deficit while cutting taxes, whether they preferred a tax cut
or reduced deficit, the effect of the tax cuts on the economy, who
benefited most from the tax cuts, whether the tax cuts should be made
permanent, and whether using the budget surplus to cut taxes was the
best thing to do. Opinions were elicited regarding the environment:
whether the federal government was doing enough regulating
environmental and safety practices of business, whether requirements
and standards can be set too high, whether or not the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge in Alaska should be approved for oil drilling, whether
producing energy or protecting the environment was more important, and
what President Bush believed was more important. Respondents were
asked whether Social Security would have money available upon their
retirement, whether allowing individuals to invest their Social
Security taxes on their own was a good idea, and whether the
government should make up any losses incurred. On the subject of
courts, respondents were asked whether newly court-appointed judges
should be reviewed and confirmed by Congress, whether Congress should
review and approve judges appointed by President Bush, and whether
President Bush's nominees would be more conservative than tolerable.
Regarding estate taxes, respondents were asked if they believed that
there should be an estate tax for thelargest estates or no estate tax
whatsoever, and whether they approved of President Bush's or the
Democrats' proposal on estate taxes. Respondents were asked to give
opinions on terrorism: whether the Bush administration had a clear
plan, whether the government would fail to enact strong anti-terrorism
laws or the new anti-terrorism laws would excessively restrict the
average person's civil liberties, whether they were willing to allow
government agencies to monitor phone calls and emails, and whether the
federal government should be allowed to use wiretaps. Other questions
focused on whether respondents approved of taking action in Iraq,
whether military action would take place in Iraq, whether military
action should take place if United States lives could be lost, what
the effect on the United States economy would be if the war lasted for
months or years, whether terrorism would increase or decrease, whether
Saddam Hussein would allow United Nations inspectors full access to
search for weapons of mass destruction, whether the United States
should bomb Iraqi targets if Saddam Hussein did not allow weapons
inspectors in, how likely another terrorist attack was within the next
few months, how concerned they were over terrorist attacks in local
areas, how confident they were in the United States government to
capture or kill Osama bin Laden, whether the war in Afghanistan could
be considered a success if bin Laden was not captured or killed,
whether bin Laden was still alive, and who was winning the war on
terrorism. Respondents were then asked a variety of questions
concerning voting behavior: if they had registered to vote, if they
voted in the 2000 election, party affiliation, and views on political
matters. Background information elicited on respondents includes
whether or not they owned a firearm, marital status, religion,
education, age, Hispanic descent, race, how long they had lived in
their present community, income, and additional phone lines.
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).
description: Datasets: 
DS1: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #1, November 2002
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over
having a telephone at home.
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' privacy.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.