Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Commentary by Morton H. Halperin, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations What the Poll Means The poll released today by the Pew Research Center, the International Herald Tribune, and the Council on Foreign Relations removes any doubt that large majorities in the major nations of Western Europe have concerns about President George W. Bush’s policies. […]
What the Poll Means The poll released today by the Pew Research Center, the International Herald Tribune, and the Council on Foreign Relations removes any doubt that large majorities in the major nations of Western Europe have concerns about President George W. Bush’s policies. Respondents in Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany do not express […]
Partisan Gap on Missile Defense Opinions on missile defense have remained fairly consistent as the debate has heated up over the past few months. The 51%-38% margin of support for the idea is similar to the results of a survey in February, when a comparable question was asked. In the current poll, nearly one-in-three Americans […]
Political analysts looking for historical parallels can’t decide whether the 2000 presidential race looks more like a rerun of 1988 or 1960. Will Vice President Al Gore take a page from Vice President George Bush’s play book, when he overcame a big deficit in the early polls and soundly defeated Michael Dukakis? At a comparable […]
Hillary, Fatigue and Gore Memories of the impeachment trial have begun to fade. Only 43% of Americans remember that Clinton’s Senate trial ended in 1999. This compares with 76% who knew in November 1991 that the Gulf War had ended earlier that year. Nonetheless, Clinton fatigue is still apparent. While Bill Clinton’s job approval ratings […]
The memories that are shared by large majorities of Americans are largely of American events and often very recent ones. Memories of significant events that did not include the U.S. are less clear. For example, while three-quarters of Americans remember the moment they heard the news of the outbreak of war in the Persian Gulf, […]
A stream of candidate announcements and polls showing Texas Governor George W. Bush leading Vice President Al Gore have spurred interest in the 2000 presidential contest. But with the nominating conventions still more than 16 months away, what do these early polls mean for would-be nominees? A look back at nearly 40 years of early […]
China’s Image Though few Americans paid very close attention to President Clinton’s trip to China, significantly more Americans see China moving in the direction of democracy and capitalism today than did so before Clinton’s June visit. Fully 35% of the public thinks that China’s government is “becoming more democratic” and “allowing more freedoms”; only 26% […]
Today, what Americans know may differ greatly depending on their source of news. In the second part of the study, looking at a broader universe of the news media in the fall of 1997, we also found different kinds of news media offering markedly different definitions of news depending on what they perceived their market […]
Introduction and Summary Americans continue to distrust the government, although there are signs that hostility toward government has begun to diminish. There is also considerable evidence that distrust of government is strongly connected to how people feel about the overall state of the nation. Today, personal satisfaction is soaring, the economy is thriving and confidence […]