In a recent debate, presidential nominee Mitt Romney told the moderator “I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually I like you, too. But I’m not going to – I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.”

Though Mitt Romney spoke only a few sentences, the audience, specifically President Obama’s campaign, have eaten it up. The Obama campaign released an ad titled “Obama for America. Save Big Bird and PBS,” filled with sarcasm and derogatory comments aimed at Romney.

Though the commercial is funny, should there be such a big a deal made over what Romney said? More so, should political ads focus on the faults of the opponent instead of addressing issues that the people should consider before we vote?

By merely focusing on an opponent’s  mistakes,  nominees belittle the democratic process. The Big Bird discussion is just one example of this, and both sides are guilty of focusing on the other candidate’s faults instead of the issues at hand.

When candidates attack the character of their opponent, the result is a weak form of discussion. The masses deserve to know what a political candidate stands for and how they intend to solve this nation’s problems. Our  intelligence is insulted when they do not do so and it undermines the election process.

One bigger issue that could have been pointed out is that the majority of funding for PBS does not come from the government.

The government allocates $420 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but the majority of that is distributed to the National Public Radio and various other stations, leaving only about 5 percent to PBS. And according to a statement from PBS, the federal investment in public broadcasting is only about 0.00012 percent of its entire budget  in 2011.

The Obama campaign could have focused on this aspect of the issue and pointed out the small statistic, but instead they created a sarcastic ad that focused on mocking Romney.

Our economy is facing serious difficulties that candidates should focus on, such as unemployment, our trillion-dollar debt and weakening foreign polices.

Do we really want to focus on a laugh, grimace or an ill-timed word, or should we focus on the serious problems occurring in our world?

When we spend our time on petty, insignificant issues, it is impossible to discuss and begin to understand what really needs to be fixed.