DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03983.v3
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #1, December 2003
title: Version 3

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 approval
ratings for President George W. Bush and his handling of the
presidency, Iraq, and the economy. Questions sought respondents'
perceptions of the state of the economy and how it would progress in
the future, their perception of George W. Bush's personal qualities,
such as his level of honesty and integrity, and how much respondents
knew about the recently passed Medicare bill. Respondents' opinions
were elicited on potential Democratic presidential nominees such as
former Vermont governor Howard Dean, Senator John Edwards, and Senator
John Kerry. They were asked who they would vote for in the 2004
presidential election, how much issues like the war in Iraq and gay
marriage would affect that decision, and whether they thought the
Republicans or the Democrats better handled particular issues, such as
senior prescription drugs or terrorism. Questions regarding the war in
Iraq included whether respondents felt that the removal of Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein was worth the lost American lives and other
costs, whether the Bush administration had a clear plan for rebuilding
Iraq, whether the Bush administration was telling everything they knew
about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and whether the public
should be able to see pictures of the military honor guard receiving
caskets returning from Iraq to the United States. Questions concerning
the war on terrorism included whether the Bush administration had a
clearly planned campaign for the war against terrorism and whether
respondents believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Questions regarding gay marriage included
whether the respondent believed that the question of "marriage" was a
legal or a religious one, whether such marriages were "wrong," and
whether they would support a law that allowed homosexuals to marry. On
the issue of performance-enhancing drugs, respondents were asked
whether they were bothered by hearing about professional athletes and
Olympic athletes using them and how many athletes they thought used
steroids. Background information was gathered on political
identification, voting record, religious preference, marital status,
level of education, age, ethnicity, annual household income, alternate
phone numbers, and willingness for callback.
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 #1, December 2003
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over
having a telephone at home.
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.