DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03824
title: CBS News Monthly Poll #3, April 2003
title: Archival Version

description: This poll, conducted April 26-27, 2003, is part of a
continuing series of monthly polls that solicit opinions on political
and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of
President George W. Bush and his overall job performance, as well as
his handling of military action against Iraq and the economy.
Respondents were also asked whether President Bush, Vice President
Richard Cheney, and the Bush administration shared the priorities of
the respondent and the degree to which the president's economic
policies had affected the national economy. Views were elicited on the
most important issue facing the United States, the national economy,
whether it was improving, getting worse, or staying the same, whether
the economy was better or worse than one year ago, whether the
respondent's financial situation was better or worse than one year
ago, whether it was getting better or getting worse, what the overall
condition of the stock market was, whether the federal budget deficit
had affected the respondent's financial situation, and how concerned
the respondent was that a member of their family would lose his or her
job. In addition, respondents were asked whether the federal
government should provide further economic aid to states or not
provide aid and let the states raise taxes and/or cut spending,
whether tax cuts in 2001 helped, hindered, or had no effect on the
economy, whether a large tax cut would help, hinder, or have no effect
on the economy, whether cutting taxes or reducing the federal deficit
was a better way to improve the economy, and what the condition of the
national economy would be if the September 11, 2001, attacks had not
occurred. Respondents were queried on the responsibility of the United
States to intervene in international crises, whether respondents felt
safer, less safe, or about the same from the threat of terrorism
compared to one year ago, whether the United States was more
respected, less respected, or maintained the same amount of respect by
the world compared to one year ago, whether it was more important that
other countries like the policies or respect the power of the United
States, and whether it was more important that the Arab world like the
policies or respect the power of the United States. Those polled also
commented on who was winning the war against terrorism, whether the
United States should only attack once it was itself attacked or if the
United States should attack before being attacked if there was a
legitimate threat by another country, and the degree of threat North
Korea posed to the United States. Respondents were asked whether they
agreed or disagreed with military action against Iraq, whether
removing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was worth the human and economic
costs, whether they thought Saddam Hussein was alive or dead, whether
the war against Iraq was worth the costs if Saddam Hussein was not
found, whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, whether the
United States would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whether
the war against Iraq was worth the human and economic costs if weapons
of mass destruction were not found, whether the Iraqi people were
grateful to the United States for ridding them of Saddam Hussein or
resentful of the United States for their presence in Iraq, and whether
the United States was in control of the events occurring in Iraq.
Other questions focused on how long respondents thought the United
States military would have to be in Iraq, whether that length of time
was too long, too short, or the right amount of time, whether the
United States had a responsibility to establish a new government in
Iraq, whether the United States would intervene if it appeared that
the new Iraqi government would be an Islamic fundamentalist
government, and whether the United States should support an Islamic
fundamentalist government in Iraq. Backgroundvariables on respondents
include age, sex, the number of children under the age of 18 in the
household, the number of children in the household aged 12 to 17,
whether the respondent voted in the 2000 United States presidential
election and if so, for whom, political orientation, political
ideology, marital status, religious orientation, education, ethnicity,
family income, and the willingness to be called again.
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 Monthly Poll #3, April 2003
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.