June Carbone, UMKC prof, examines the blue-red divide

June Carbone, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City,

was working on a book during the 2008 election. The subject matter helped her and her husband, William Black, who also teaches law at UMKC, win a guess-the-electoral-votes office pool.

Carbone and co-author Naomi Cahn began their research after 2004 election. They set out to understand why the so-called “values voters” tended to live in states with highest divorce and teen birth rates. Among those to note the correlation was Vanity Fair culture critic James Wolcott, who called miniature beauty pageant contestant JonBenet Ramsey “the pre-pubescent red-hot-mama mascot of red-state Babylon.”