DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03123.v3
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #1, September 2000
title: Version 3

description: This poll, fielded September 9-11, 2000, 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
Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Connecticut senator Joseph
Lieberman, Texas governor George W. Bush, and former Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney. Those queried were asked whether they intended to
vote in the November 7, 2000, presidential election and for whom they
would vote if the election were held that day, given a choice between
Gore (Democratic Party), Bush (Republican Party), conservative
commentator Pat Buchanan (Reform Party), and consumer advocate Ralph
Nader (Green Party). A series of questions addressed the presidential
campaigns of Gore and Bush, including which candidate could be trusted
to keep his word, possessed strong leadership qualities, had the
ability to deal with an international crisis, cared about the needs of
people like the respondent, shared the values of the American people,
would keep his campaign promises, had spent more time explaining his
proposals than attacking his opposition, and had made clear what he
intended to accomplish as president. Respondent views on the
candidates' proposed policies were elicited, including which candidate
was more likely to maintain a strong economy, reduce the cost of
prescription drugs for the elderly, protect the environment, improve
education, reduce taxes, make health care affordable to everyone, work
toward building a missile defense system, and choose Supreme Court
justices who would vote to keep abortion legal. Other questions
focused on whether the expected federal budget surplus should be spent
cutting taxes, paying down the national debt, or preserving programs
like Medicare and Social Security. A series of questions addressed
United States military strength and the proposed missile defense
system, with items on knowledge of the missile defense system program,
whether such a land- and sea-based missile defense system would work,
and whether the government should continue to develop such a
system. Additional topics covered whether presidential candidates
should participate in debates organized by the Commission on
Presidential Debates, respondent views on abortion, the tone of
campaign advertising, whether it was appropriate for presidential
candidates to publicly discuss their religious beliefs, whether any
candidate had used religion improperly during the campaign, and how
respondents intended to vote in the 2000 Congressional
elections. Background information on respondents includes age, gender,
political party, political orientation, voter registration and
participation history, labor union membership, marital status,
religion, race, Hispanic origin, age of children in household,
computer access, household income, number of years living in
community, and whether the respondent was financially better or worse
off than eight years ago.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #1, September 2000
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, hardcopy documentation has been converted
to machine-readable form, data files have been converted to
non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been recoded to
ensure respondents' anonymity. (2) The codebook is provided by ICPSR
as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was
developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF
reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how
to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web
site.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.