DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03921.v2
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #2, September 2003
title: Version 2

description: This poll, conducted September 28-October 1, 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 the situation with Iraq, foreign policy issues, and the economy. Questions probed respondents' views on the state of the economy, whether they expected a change for the worse or the better, and how the state of the economy had changed since President Bush took office. Respondents were asked if they were registered to vote and how much attention they paid to the 2004 presidential campaign. Opinion was gathered on various Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination, including former Illinois Senator Carol Moseley Braun, General Wesley Clark, former Vermont Governor Dr. Howard Dean, North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, Reverend Al Sharpton, and Florida Senator Bob Graham. They were also asked whether they were likely to vote in the Republican or Democratic primary or caucus, how they voted in the 2000 election, and how often they vote in primaries or caucuses. Respondents were asked who they would like to see win the Democratic nomination and who they believed would have a chance of winning. Respondents also indicated who they expected to win in November, regardless of the outcome of the Democratic Party nomination. Respondents were asked whether personal family finances, the economy, employment and unemployment, cost of prescription drugs, national security, education, and taxes had positively or negatively changed since President Bush took office. Questions gauged respondents' confidence in President Bush's ability to handle an international crisis or to make economic decisions. Respondents were asked whom they thought President Bush cared about: everyone, Blacks, Hispanics, and the lower, middle, or upper classes. Many questions delved into the respondents' perceptions of President Bush's honesty and integrity and compared that perception to those of current and former political figures. General opinions on Republicans and Democrats were sought as well as whether or not either or both parties had a clear plan for the country. Opinions about the war in Iraq were probed, including whether President Bush was clear on the length and cost of the war. Questions addressed whether or not the United States should spend an extra $87 billion on the Iraq War and whether the outcome and the removal of Saddam Hussein were worth the cost and the loss of American life. Opinions were sought on who should have led the effort in Iraq and whether other countries respected President Bush. Respondents were also asked what they believed was the real cause of the Iraq War, and whether they thought Saddam Hussein was tied to the September 11 attacks. The importance of religion in the respondents' lives was also gauged. Demographic variables include political affiliation, union membership, voting record in 2000, marital status, religious preference, education level, age and age group, Hispanic nationality, race, income, and other possible phone numbers.
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: (1) 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).