CHARLOTTE (CBS Charlotte) -- A recently conducted survey revealed that the majority of Americans found presidential campaigning for the 2012 election to be especially negative on both sides of the aisle.
According to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, poll participants gave the campaign of re-elected President Barack Obama a C+ grade. In 2008, he had reportedly earned a B+ in the same survey.
“The 2012 presidential campaign was a frustrating experience for many voters, who say the campaign was more negative than usual and had less discussion of issues than in most previous campaigns,” an official release on the study’s findings noted. “Both Obama and Romney get mixed grades for the job they did reaching out to voters, as do campaign consultants, the press and pollsters.”
Researchers added, “On most measures, voters’ views of campaign 2012 fall short of the election four years ago.”
The primary frustration for voters came from the lack of emphasis placed on important issues – including the economy and foreign policy – by the candidates.
A reported 51 percent of people asked told Pew that there was less of a discussion of issues than usual. That number is up from 2008, when only 34 percent of Americans felt the issues were taking a backseat in Presidential campaigning.
Obama remarked on the negativity of Republican contender Mitt Romney’s campaign at the Democratic National Convention, held in Charlotte earlier this year.
“Now, our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right,” he told the crowd during his headlining speech at the September event. “They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan.”
Romney also took aim at elements of the president’s campaign policy while addressing the crowd at the Republican National Convention in Tampa this past August.
“’Hope and change’ had a powerful appeal,” he said, evoking the buzzword used by Obama’s campaign in 2008. “But tonight I’d ask a simple question – if you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama?”
The Romney campaign garnered a C from polled Americans, slightly lower than the C+ awarded to the campaign of 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain.
Those asked also expressed a concern for the ability for bipartisanship in government – though blame for the issue was assigned to different parties, depending on the affiliation of the person asked.
“Only about half (46%) of Republicans want GOP leaders to work with Obama to get things done, while about as many (50%) say they should stand up to Obama, even if less gets done,” the release on Pew’s website noted. “The message to Obama from Democrats is only somewhat more conciliatory – 54% want the president to try to work with Republicans, but 42% do not.”
The study was reportedly conducted Nov. 8 to 11 of this year.
