If you live in North Carolina, ask yourself if anything Bev Perdue or Pat McCrory has done qualifies them as policy experts. . . .

. . . in anything.

Then consider Analyzing Policy: Choices, Conflicts, and Practice (W. W. Norton, 2000) by Dr Michael Munger, which has become a standard text for introducing students to public-policy analysis:

This readable and comprehensive introduction to the principles of public-policy analysis is the first book to integrate the tools students need to analyze politics with the common sense they need to understand how real policies are made. Analyzing Policynot only helps students learn the conceptual foundations of policy analysis, but it also helps them understand the conflicts between markets, democracy, and experts in political decision making. The book offers students the basics of the welfare-economics paradigm and cost-benefit analysis while highlighting the roles that policy analysts play. The analytical techniques presented in the text are applied throughout each chapter and in three chapter-length case studies. Students are challenged to apply these techniques on their own in end-of-chapter exercises and additional problems on Norton's supporting Web site.

Maybe now we know why they don't want him the North Carolina gubernatorial debates: Fear of embarrassment.