In terms of money and political experience, the race for North Carolina House District 118 is like a match-up between David and Goliath.

Democratic incumbent Ray Rapp, who’s held the seat for four terms, ran unopposed in 2004 and 2008. Rapp has more than $80,000 in his campaign account, while Edwards has little more than $500.

Also, voter registration is stacked against his opponent Sam Edwards, with 49 percent of voters in the district registered Democrat, 28 percent Republican, and 23 percent unaffiliated.

But Edwards is hoping to ride a wave created by Tea Party fervor and changing political tides.

Edwards – an Anglican priest – said he “got off the fence” about opposing Rapp when he voted for “safe sex” education in middle schools.

Edwards said most of the people in his district subscribe to conservative values in their personal lives. He called Rapp’s support of the Healthy Youth Act — which replaced the state’s abstinence-based sex education curriculum with “comprehensive” sex education — unrepresentative of those values.

“Such decisions rightfully belong to parents and to the elected local boards of education, not to legislators, education bureaucrats, Planned Parenthood, special-rights lobbyists, and the National Education Association,” Edwards writes on his website.

Rapp said the purpose of the legislation was to give parents choices, not take them away.

“It gives the parents who want to have their children take a comprehensive sex education curriculum the right to choose that,” Rapp said. “It has to be signed off on by the parents.”

“It also gives parents the option of an abstinence only curriculum,” he added.

The law states that the comprehensive program is the default program, not merely one of two options. It does, however, allow parents to review course material and exempt their children from part or all of the program.

Childhood obesity

Another area Edwards said the state has no business regulating is children’s lunch boxes. He pointed to Rapp’s support of legislation banning whole-fat milk, sugar-sweetened beverages, and juice in preschools and childcare centers.

Rapp said the government had to step in because 30 percent of the state’s children are obese.

“If a parent wants to see that their child has sugar-based drinks they can serve them at home, at restaurants, wherever,” Rapp said. “But in the childcare centers, we hope we can model good behavior and good eating habits.”

Incentives

Edwards also criticized Rapp for voting to expand tax incentives to the film industry, which he called “corporate welfare.”

“It’s like a referee in a football game who decides he wants to play on one of the teams,” he said.

Rapp defended his support of the tax credits, saying if North Carolina didn’t lure filmmakers, they’d go to other states that offered a better deal.

“It will generate employment for our creative folks,” Rapp said. “It’s not just actors — it’s technicians, it’s carpenters, it’s grips, it’s catering services and band services.”

Closing the budget gap

When asked how he would address the state’s projected $3 billion budget deficit next year, Rapp said he’d cut prisoner education funding by $8 million, consolidate early childhood education programs like Head Start and More at Four, and ask for additional funding from the federal government. Rapp also said while he’s not in favor of raising taxes, he’d consider continuing taxes that were scheduled to sunset.

Edwards said he’d limit spending to only “the essential functions of state government” — the two most important being public safety and transportation infrastructure.

He said he’d also work to replace the state income tax with a consumption tax — a sales tax on all non-necessity items.

Sara Burrows is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.