DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03826
title: CBS News Monthly Poll #2, May 2003
title: Archival Version

description: This poll conducted, May 27-28, 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, the campaign against
terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the economy. Views
were elicited on the most important issue facing the country, the
state of the economy, whether the best way to improve the economy was
by reducing the budget deficit or by cutting taxes, whether President
Bush was paying enough attention to the economy, whether the
respondent had any knowledge of proposed tax cuts, what effect the
proposed tax cuts would have on the economy, if any, whether the
United States Congress was paying enough attention to the economy, and
whether the economy would be very good, fairly good, fairly bad, or
very bad if the attacks on the September 11, 2001, had not occurred.
Opinions were sought on whether Saudi Arabia should be considered an
ally, friendly but not an ally, unfriendly but not an enemy, or an
enemy, the ability of the United States government to establish peace
in the Middle East, the ability of George W. Bush to establish peace
in the Middle East, the likelihood of another terrorist attack in the
next few months, the level of concern respondents had that a terrorist
attack would occur where they lived, the effectiveness of terror
alerts and warnings, who was winning the war against terrorism, the
likelihood of the United States intervening in Iran given the outcome
of military action in Iraq, and the degree of threat posed to the
United States by Iran. Information was gathered on respondents'
knowledge of terrorist bombings in Saudi Arabia, whether respondents
altered Memorial Day plans as a result of the terror alert level being
raised, whether respondents were concerned about losing civil
liberties due to new security measures and regulations proposed by
President Bush's administration, and whether in order to reduce the
threat of terrorism, respondents would be willing to allow the
government to monitor the telephone calls and electronic mail of
"ordinary Americans," or of "suspicious Americans." Specific questions
addressed military action in Iraq. Respondents were queried on whether
military action in Iraq had an effect on the threat of terrorism,
whether military action in Iraq had an effect on Al-Qaeda planning,
whether, given the outcome of military action in Iraq, the United
States should not attack unless attacked first or should be able to
attack countries that pose a threat before they attack the United
States, and whether it was more important for the United States to be
liked for its policies or respected for its military power. In
addition, respondents were questioned on whether removing Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein from power was worth the human and economic costs,
whether the Bush administration over-, under-, or accurately estimated
the number of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whether the Bush
administration overexaggerated the number of weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq in order to build support for military action,
whether United States intelligence agencies, like the Central
Intelligence Agency, over-, under-, or accurately estimated the number
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whether United States
intelligence agencies overexaggerated the number of weapons of mass
destruction in order to build support for military action, how
confident they were in the ability of the United States military to
kill or capture Saddam Hussein, how confident they were in the ability
of the United States military to find weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq, whether Saddam Hussein was still alive and if it mattered, the
progress of bringing order and stability to Iraq, whether theIraqi
people were grateful toward the United States for removing Saddam
Hussein from power or resentful of the United States for occupying the
country, the most important accomplishment in Iraq made by the United
States, and the number one priority of the United States in Iraq.
Background variables include age, sex, ethnicity, political
orientation, political ideology, marital status, religious
orientation, education, total household income, whether the respondent
chose to vote in the 2000 United States presidential election or if
the respondent was prevented from voting, and if the respondent voted,
for whom they voted (Democrat Al Gore, Republican George W. Bush,
Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, or Green Party candidate Ralph
Nader).
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 #2, May 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' 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.