WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (AFP) - More than half of those polled in the United States said President George W. Bush would not use a color-coded attack alert system for political ends, according to a poll released Saturday.
The Time magazine poll said 54 percent believe Bush would not manipulate the threat level in the run-up to the November 2 election. Thirty-eight percent said he would.
The poll came after a week of criticism over an August 1 rise in the Advisory System from "elevated," coded yellow, to "high," coded orange, at financial institutions in and around New York and Washington.
Bush opponents and The New York Times decried the rise as politically motivated.
Still, 66 percent of those polled said that even an attack would have little impact on their vote, the newsweekly said. And voters were split evenly on which candidate would benefit from such an attack, with 30 percent saying Bush would benefit and 31 percent saying that Kerry would.
Twenty-seven percent of respondents said the economy was the most important election issue, while 18 percent said it was the war on terror, according to the poll, which was published a day after the US economy turned in disappointing job-creation statistics.
All told, 48 percent of likely voters would cast their ballots for Democratic challenger Kerry, 43 percent would vote for Bush and four percent would vote for independent candidate Ralph Nader, the poll said. Only three percent said they were undecided. However, 17 percent of those who said they had made up their minds also said that they could still be swayed in the next three months.
Time conducted the telephone poll August 3-5 among 1,202 adults, 1,001 of whom were registered voters and 758 likely voters. The margin of error is four percentage points.