WASHINGTON (PNN) - September 6, 2012 - When asked for a one-word description of Vice President Joe Biden, more people use negative words like “idiot” and “buffoon” than positive words, according to a new Pew Research Center and Washington Post poll.

Of those polled, 38% used a negative one-word term when describing Joe Biden while only 23% used positive words.

“Idiot,” “incompetent” and “clown” were the top negative words used to describe Biden.

However, 39% of those polled used neutral terms when giving one-word descriptions of Biden, with words like “vice presidential” among the most common.

Republicans were the most likely to sum up the vice president in a negative light, with 63% doing so and only 7% describing Biden favorably.

As the poll notes, “There are wide partisan differences in one-word impressions of Biden, but even Democrats are not highly positive about the vice president. As many Democrats use neutral words as positive words to describe Biden (47% vs. 45%).”

Independents also weren’t so kind to Biden either, with 42% using negative words to describe him and only 18% using positive ones.

Pew and the Washington Post released a similar poll last week about Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, and found that people were more positive than negative when describing him, though nearly as many people use negative terms to describe Ryan as use positive ones.

The most frequent responses people gave when asked to give one-word descriptions about Ryan were “conservative,” “intelligent,” “good,” “unknown,” and “young.”

In contrast, Joe Biden was often described as “old”.