DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03826.v2
title: CBS News Monthly Poll #2, May 2003
title: Version 2

description: This poll conducted, May 27-28, 2003, is part of a continuing series of monthly polls that solicit opinions on political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President George W. Bush and his overall job performance, as well as his handling of military action against Iraq, the campaign against terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the economy. Views were elicited on the most important issue facing the country, the state of the economy, whether the best way to improve the economy was by reducing the budget deficit or by cutting taxes, whether President Bush was paying enough attention to the economy, whether the respondent had any knowledge of proposed tax cuts, what effect the proposed tax cuts would have on the economy, if any, whether the United States Congress was paying enough attention to the economy, and whether the economy would be very good, fairly good, fairly bad, or very bad if the attacks on the September 11, 2001, had not occurred. Opinions were sought on whether Saudi Arabia should be considered an ally, friendly but not an ally, unfriendly but not an enemy, or an enemy, the ability of the United States government to establish peace in the Middle East, the ability of George W. Bush to establish peace in the Middle East, the likelihood of another terrorist attack in the next few months, the level of concern respondents had that a terrorist attack would occur where they lived, the effectiveness of terror alerts and warnings, who was winning the war against terrorism, the likelihood of the United States intervening in Iran given the outcome of military action in Iraq, and the degree of threat posed to the United States by Iran. Information was gathered on respondents' knowledge of terrorist bombings in Saudi Arabia, whether respondents altered Memorial Day plans as a result of the terror alert level being raised, whether respondents were concerned about losing civil liberties due to new security measures and regulations proposed by President Bush's administration, and whether in order to reduce the threat of terrorism, respondents would be willing to allow the government to monitor the telephone calls and electronic mail of "ordinary Americans," or of "suspicious Americans." Specific questions addressed military action in Iraq. Respondents were queried on whether military action in Iraq had an effect on the threat of terrorism, whether military action in Iraq had an effect on Al-Qaeda planning, whether, given the outcome of military action in Iraq, the United States should not attack unless attacked first or should be able to attack countries that pose a threat before they attack the United States, and whether it was more important for the United States to be liked for its policies or respected for its military power. In addition, respondents were questioned on whether removing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power was worth the human and economic costs, whether the Bush administration over-, under-, or accurately estimated the number of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whether the Bush administration overexaggerated the number of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to build support for military action, whether United States intelligence agencies, like the Central Intelligence Agency, over-, under-, or accurately estimated the number of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whether United States intelligence agencies overexaggerated the number of weapons of mass destruction in order to build support for military action, how confident they were in the ability of the United States military to kill or capture Saddam Hussein, how confident they were in the ability of the United States military to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whether Saddam Hussein was still alive and if it mattered, the progress of bringing order and stability to Iraq, whether theIraqi people were grateful toward the United States for removing Saddam Hussein from power or resentful of the United States for occupying the country, the most important accomplishment in Iraq made by the United States, and the number one priority of the United States in Iraq. Background variables include age, sex, ethnicity, political orientation, political ideology, marital status, religious orientation, education, total household income, whether the respondent chose to vote in the 2000 United States presidential election or if the respondent was prevented from voting, and if the respondent voted, for whom they voted (Democrat Al Gore, Republican George W. Bush, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, or Green Party candidate Ralph Nader).
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: 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.
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).