DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03379.v3
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll, December 2001
title: Version 3

description: This poll is part of a continuing series of surveys that
solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other
political and social issues. The survey examined respondents' views
about changes made by the Bush administration since the terrorist
attacks of September 11th in the way government agencies seek,
investigate, and prosecute suspected criminals and, in particular,
suspected terrorists. Those polled gave their opinions on the ways in
which people suspected of involvement in the terrorist attacks against
the United States should be dealt with, public and military court
procedures, immigration, civil liberties, and constitutional
rights. Respondents also expressed their views on the military
campaign led by the United States in Afghanistan, United States
humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and the ability of the United States
government to capture Osama Bin Laden and protect its citizens from
future terrorist attacks. The survey also queried respondents on the
most important problems for the government, the condition of the
national economy, layoff expectations, the situation in the Middle
East, President Bush's handling of the campaign against terrorism,
foreign policy, and the economy, and the way Congress was handling its
job. Those polled were asked which party was more likely to make the
right decisions in terms of protecting people's rights and dealing
with terrorism. Respondents also gave their opinions of Attorney
General John Achcroft, indicated whether they would support a possible
United States attack against Iraq, and commented on whether they were
going to spend more or less money on gifts during the holiday season.
Background information on respondents includes age, gender, education,
religion, race, Hispanic descent, political party affiliation,
political orientation, marital status, number of children in the
household, and household income.
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, December 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.