Incumbent Republican Tim Moffitt and Democrat Brian Turner are competing for the privilege of representing Asheville in the N.C. House.

The Republican is a product of public education.  Rep. Moffitt and his children attended public elementary, middle, high, and postsecondary schools.  The Democrat is a product of private schools.   Mr. Turner attended the private Carolina Day School and two private universities, Northwestern and Wake Forest.  Currently, his daughter is a student at Carolina Day and he volunteers there.

So, does it matter if the candidate and/or his children attend(ed) a public or private school? Yes it does.

In this case, Democrats contend that their candidate’s education does not matter.  Yet, how can the North Carolina Democratic Party support a candidate when the party despises private schools enough to oppose allowing low-income kids to attend one?  Democrats and their boosters have pulled no punches in their campaign to discredit means-tested vouchers and private school education generally.

So, are their criticisms applicable to the elite private school embraced by the Turner family?  For example…

1. How do we know that Carolina Day School is not training terrorists?

2. Does anyone know if students at the “unaccountable” Carolina Day School are actually learning anything?

3. Is Carolina Day racially segregated? Discriminatory?

I suspect that Carolina Day School is a respectable institution.  If it weren’t, wealthy parents – Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and independents alike – would not be willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to send their children there.  (By the way, their choice is a remarkably effective form of accountability.)

But Democrats and their allies cannot have it both ways.  They cannot claim that private schools are harmful, except in cases when one of their own uses his considerable wealth to send his children to a school that very few others could afford.