DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03349
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll, June 2001
title: Archival Version

description: This poll 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 George W. Bush and his handling of the
presidency. Opinions were also gathered on Vice President Dick Cheney,
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Arizona Senator John McCain, and
the United States Congress. Responding to questions about Bush, those
polled gave their opinions on Bush's handling of foreign policy, the
economy, the energy situation, and the environment. Respondents were
asked if Bush could be trusted to keep his word, whether Bush had
strong qualities of leadership, whether they had confidence in Bush's
ability to deal wisely with an international crisis, and how much they
thought Bush cared about the needs and problems of people like
themselves, as well as Blacks. Opinions were gathered on whether Bush
was seen as more liberal, moderate, or conservative, whether he was a
different kind of Republican, whether he was working hard enough at
the job of being president, and whether he had good judgment under
pressure. Respondents were queried on whether Bush could negotiate
effectively with world leaders and if those leaders had respect for
him. The next set of questions dealt with the President and Congress.
Opinions were gathered on both the Republican and Democratic parties,
whether the close division between Republicans and Democrats had
decreased partisanship by forcing the parties to work together,
whether Bush would compromise with the Democrats to get things done
and if the Democrats would do the same, if the Democrats or the
president would have more influence over the direction of the country,
whether respondents trusted the president or the Senate to make the
right decisions about who should sit on the Supreme Court, and whether
Bush's appointees would be more conservative than respondents would
like. Another set of questions dealt with Social Security, including
whether respondents thought individuals should be allowed to invest a
portion of their Social Security taxes on their own and whether the
government should be responsible to make up any losses as a result of
personal investment. On the subject of Medicare, respondents were
asked if reducing the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly
mattered to them personally and if they would favor having Medicare
pay for the costs of prescription drugs for all recipients or only for
low-income recipients. Opinions were also solicited on whether
respondents favored a law guaranteeing people in HMOs and other
managed care plans the right to sue their plans for denying coverage.
Respondents were asked if they favored raising the minimum wage and if
there should be mandatory testing of students every year in public
schools to determine the allocation of federal funds. With respect to
the economy, respondents were asked how they rated the condition of
the national economy, whether they thought it was getting better,
whether the tax cuts would be good for the economy, and whether using
a significant portion of the budget surplus to cut taxes would be the
best thing to do or if it would be better to spend the money on
programs such as Social Security and Medicare. On the subject of the
environment and energy, questions were asked concerning whether
continuing environmental improvements must be made regardless of cost,
whether producing energy or protecting the environment was more
important, whether the environment must be protected even if it meant
paying higher prices for electricity and gasoline, whether respondents
thought that the energy shortages were real, and whether they thought
energy companies decided among themselves what prices to charge for
energy. Respondents were also asked whether they approved of the
building of more nuclearpower plants to generate electricity and
whether they would still feel that way if one were built in their own
community, whether the government should increase production of
petroleum, coal, and natural gas, or instead encourage people to
conserve energy, whether there should be fewer regulations placed on
oil and gas companies to make it easier for them to increase energy
production, whether the oil industry had too much influence, and how
they felt Bush and Cheney's ties to the oil industry would affect the
administration's energy policy. Opinions of respondents were also
elicited on the California power shortages, including whether the
problems in California were a result of real power shortages or if
power companies were claiming power shortages in order to charge
consumers more for power, whether the federal government should help
California with its energy problems, and whether respondents were in
favor of price caps on power. On the issue of cars and fuel,
respondents were asked what type of vehicle they had most recently
purchased and whether they approved of the government requiring car
manufacturers to meet higher fuel efficiency standards. A final set of
questions concerned global warming. Respondents were asked whether the
United States should abide by the Kyoto Treaty, if global warming
would have a serious impact now or in the future, and whether it was
necessary to take steps to counter the effects of global warming right
away. Background information on respondents includes age, sex,
race/ethnic identity, education, religion, voter registration and
participation history, political party affiliation, political
orientation, marital status, age of children in household, income,
economic investments, and type of health insurance plan respondents
had.
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/New York Times Monthly Poll, June 2001
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over
having telephones 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.