DOI: 10.3886/icpsr33962.v1
title: CBS News/60 Minutes/Vanity Fair National Poll, April #2, 2011
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded April 28 - May 1, 2011, is a part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicits public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. Respondents were asked for their opinions of political figures President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, and members of the royal family, Prince Charles and Lady Camilla. Opinions were sought on a range of topics that included abortion, the expected length of time United States troops will remain in Afghanistan, plans for the Memorial Day holiday, the economic dichotomy within the United States, and the quality of blockbuster movies today compared to ten years ago. Respondents were also asked whether detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba could be held safely in United States maximum security prisons. Several questions sought the respondent's opinions on positive thinking, motherhood, happiness, and comparative consumption of home décor and furniture goods. A significant portion of the survey focused on the rising cost of gasoline. Respondents were asked their opinion of the future cost of gasoline, whether they've taken any specific steps to deal with the higher price of gasoline, whether they've suffered financial hardship due to the increased prices of gasoline, and whether they plan to change summer vacation plans. Additional topics included the Tea Party movement, reasons for the American Civil War, United States government participation in prosecuting professional athletes for cheating, legitimacy of graffiti as art, and lying about one's age. Demographic variables include sex, age, race, marital status, education level, household income, religious preference, political party affiliation, political philosophy, voter registration status, and whether respondents thought of themselves as born-again Christians.
description: The data contain a weight variable that should be used in analyzing the data. According to the CBS News Web site, the data were weighted to match United States Census Bureau breakdowns on age, sex, race, education, and region of the country. The data were also adjusted for the fact that people who share a telephone with others have less chance to be contacted than people who live alone and have their own telephones, and that households with more than one telephone number have more chances to be called than households with only one telephone number.
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.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: CBS News/New York Times Poll Series
description: telephone interview
description: Persons aged 18 years and older living in households with telephones in the United States. Smallest Geographic Unit: state
description: A variation of random-digit dialing (RDD) 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. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. 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).