In 2004, for the first time since these leader-public comparisons were introduced in 1978, the two groups diverged sharply on goals relating to Global Altruism, with the leaders' ratings now much higher than those of the public. In previous CCFR surveys, Global Altruism objectives widely seen as primarily benefiting other countries showed relatively high volatility, and they received relatively low priority from both groups. For example, all five Global Altruism measures for the public (but none of the other goals) recorded twenty-year low points in 1994, but all rebounded in 1998. Similarly, all five of these measures for the leaders declined in 1994, but rebounded in 1998.

In 2004, the public's support for each of the four Global Altruism measures repeated by the CCFR fell ten percentage points or more from 1998-2002 readings, hitting their lowest levels in the thirty-year history of the Chicago Council surveys and marking this climate as the worst yet recorded by CCFR polls for building public support for "altruistic" programs overseas.

Leaders, in contrast, recorded higher values in 2004 on all of these measures compared to 1998, and tied previous high points on both of the economic altruism goals-"combating world hunger" (with 67 percent saying it was very important) and "helping to improve the standard of living of less developed nations" (64 percent very important-up from 36 percent in 1998). As Figure 1 shows, the leader-public split was most evident on this second economic altruism goal, with 64 percent of leaders versus 18 percent of the public saying it was very important.

Another CCFR question showed the wide gap between respondent groups on economic altruism in 2004: Most leaders (61 percent) supported expanded "economic aid to other nations" (as opposed to 28 percent who favored keeping it the same and only 9 percent who favored cutting back), while most of the public (64 percent) wanted to cut back economic aid (versus 26 percent in favor of keeping it the same and only 8 percent supporting expansion).

While results from comparable foreign policy goal questions asked by Gallup in February 2005 suggest that the public's support for Global Altruism goals has risen from 2004 low points to match levels recorded by Gallup in 2001 and 2003, this still leaves a large leader-public split on economic altruism issues.

In the area of Domestic Issues, the American public is more concerned than leaders about the adverse personal financial impact of U.S. policies, and therefore gives higher priority to restricting the flow of people and products into the country. The public has consistently since 1978 given much higher priority than leaders to every domestic issue tested. The measures that continue to show the sharpest disagreement between leaders and public-nearly 40 percentage points-are "protecting the jobs of American workers" and "controlling and reducing illegal immigration."

Other questions on the CCFR 2004 survey showed greater receptivity on the part of U.S. leaders to the idea of economic globalization: 87 percent of leaders (versus 64 percent of the public) said they believed "globalization, especially the increasing connections of our economy with others around the world, is mostly good for the United States."

U.S. leaders were much more supportive than the public of "legal immigration" into the United States. Half (50 percent) favored keeping legal immigration at its present level, while those preferring to increase it easily outnumbered those wanting to decrease it (by 33 percent to 10 percent). In contrast, more than half of the public (54 percent) favored decreasing legal immigration, compared to 31 percent who wanted to maintain it at its present level and 11 percent who wanted to increase it.

In corroboration of these latter findings, Gallup surveys between June 1965 and June 2004 have shown that public support for decreased immigration (averaging 49 percent on fifteen polls) has far exceeded support for increasing it (10 percent average) on every poll, and usually has also exceeded support for maintaining the present level of immigration (34 percent average). Support for decreased immigration rose seventeen points to 58 percent shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but returned to its forty-year average of 49 percent on the latest Gallup measure in June 2004.