DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03126.v3
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #2, September 2000
title: Version 3

description: This poll, fielded September 27-October 1, 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, former Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney, and the United States Congress. 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 possessed strong leadership qualities, had the skills
necessary to negotiate with Congress, had the ability to deal
effectively with world leaders, cared about the needs of people like
the respondent, had spent more time explaining his proposals than
attacking his opposition, and shared a political orientation similar
to that of the respondent. Views on the candidates' proposed policies
were also elicited, including which candidate was more likely to
maintain a strong economy, keep oil prices down, reduce the cost of
prescription drugs for the elderly, reduce taxes, make health care
affordable for everyone, preserve the privacy of the financial and
medical records of the American people, strengthen the United States
military, and choose Supreme Court justices whose opinions would be
the closest to the respondent's on issues like abortion. 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 which political party was more likely to insure
economic prosperity, improve health care, reduce taxes, improve
education, and make the right decision about Social
Security. Additional topics covered whether respondents intended to
watch the televised presidential debate on October 3, what they
expected to learn from the debate, and whether the information they
obtained from the debate would influence their electoral decision. A
final series of questions sought respondent views on the use of school
vouchers, the state of the public school system in the country and in
their community, and which level of government was responsible for
improving the public school system. Background information on
respondents includes age, gender, political party, political
orientation, voter registration and participation history, education,
labor union membership, military service, marital status, religion,
race, Hispanic origin, health care coverage, age of children in
household, computer and Internet 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 #2, 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.