DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03787.v3
title: CBS News Monthly Poll #5, March 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 their
opinions of President George W. Bush and his handling of the
presidency and foreign policy. In addition, respondents were asked
whether they approved of actions taken against Iraq, how closely they
followed news about the war, and what surprised them most about the
war. Respondents were asked to give their opinions 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, whether the war would be fairly
quick and successful or long and costly, the duration of the war, how
well the war was going, and whether the United States correctly
assessed how much resistance there would be from the Iraqi
army. Respondents were also asked whether they felt proud about the
actions of the United States, whether the Bush administration had
clearly explained the cost of the war, and how much confidence they
had in President Bush to make the right decisions regarding the war in
Iraq. Views were elicited on whether it was acceptable for someone to
criticize the president's decisions on military issues, whether
Americans who opposed the war should hold protest marches or rallies,
and whether the war in Iraq was part of the war on terrorism.
Respondents were asked whether the war bothered them, how much the war
affected their news viewing, whether the media spent too much time on
war coverage, whether field reporting (news reporters traveling with
troops) was a good or bad idea, and whether the field reporters
reported accurately or tried to make things look better or worse than
they were. Opinions were sought on whether the United States had the
right to use military force, whether Iraq was a threat, level of
concern about another terrorist attack within the United States, and
willingness to cut domestic spending to fund the war. Finally,
respondents were asked whether they or a family member served in the
military, whether they had children, whether the children had
expressed concern about the war, and how often the war was discussed
with the children. 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: 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 Monthly Poll #5, March 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' 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.