DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03786.v2
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #4, March 2003
title: Version 2

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, foreign policy, and the economy. In addition, respondents were asked whether they approved of actions taken against Iraq, whether President Bush did everything to avoid war with Iraq, and whether the United States or any country is justified in attacking another country without first being attacked. Respondents' opinions were elicited on various aspects of the war in Iraq: whether the removal of Saddam Hussein from power was worth the potential loss of life, whether the United States was making a mistake getting involved, level of concern over and the likelihood of a possible terrorist attack, whether the United States and local governments were prepared for another terrorist attack, whether the war would be fairly quick and successful or long and costly, potential loss of life, and when the respondent became convinced the United States would take military action. Respondents were also asked whether the Bush administration had clearly explained the cost of the war, the duration, and potential loss of life, whether they believed the Bush administration had a clear plan for rebuilding Iraq, whether the respondent felt proud about the actions of the United States, and whether the military was holding back information. A number of questions were posed regarding the Republican and Democratic parties: which of the two would ensure a strong economy, build a strong military defense, and make the right decisions regarding terrorism. Respondents were asked whether Democratic presidential candidates should speak out against the war, whether Americans who opposed the war should hold protest marches or rallies, and whether presidential candidates should continue to campaign while the war continued. Respondents were asked whether the war bothered them, how much the war affected their news viewing, and what their impressions were of the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Finally, respondents were asked whether they or a family member served in the military. A variety of demographic information was elicited, including political party affiliation, political view (liberal, moderate, or conservative), marital status, religion, education, age, Hispanic descent, race, income, and additional phone lines.
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..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: CBS News/New York Times Poll Series
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' privacy.
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.
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over having a telephone at home.
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).