Jennifer Granholm
Jennifer Mulhern Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is the governor of the State of Michigan in the United States from the Democratic Party. She is the first female governor of the state.
Granholm was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1959, but her family moved to California when she was four. At 21, she decided to give up a Hollywood acting career that never got off the ground, became a U.S. citizen, and got involved in John Anderson's independent run for U.S. President in 1980. That same year, she enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with honors with a degree in political science. Granholm then earned a law degree at Harvard Law School, also with honors. She clerked for U.S. Judge Damon Keith on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She married current "first gentleman" Daniel Mulhern, a corporate lawyer from Michigan and became in 1990 a U.S. prosecutor for the Detroit area. In 1994 she was appointed Wayne County Corporation Counsel. Granholm was elected Michigan Attorney General in 1998, serving for two years (1999-2001), focusing on protecting citizens and consumers, and establishing Michigan's first HighTech Crime Unit. After 9/11, Granholm directed state agencies to work with lawmakers in keeping the fight against terrorism within the powers of the state. She also imposed a regulation on gasoline dealers to keep them from raising prices dramatically, something which occured massively across Michigan immediately following 9/11. She defeated Republican Lieutenant Governor Dick Posthumus in 2002 to become governor.
In 2003, ran across the Mackinac Bridge, North America's longest suspension bridge (about 5 miles,) in 47 minutes. She was just a little slower than the previous record-holding governor, a man who ran across it in 45 minutes. She may have broken 'the rules' (really just long-respected tradition) by running in an event that usually requires citizens to walk, but by the next year the rules of the event were changed to accomodate the Governor who led a pack of runners chosen from a fitness lottery. In that event, Jennifer Granholm ran across the bridge with Michigan citizens in under 45 minutes. The September 2004 event is detailed at the Michigan Fitness website .
She is often described as a centrist however affiliated with the Democratic Party. Many people have raised the question of her attaining Presidency, a position which, under the U.S. Constitution, is normally prohibited to a naturalized citizen. The same question is often raised of Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of the state of California.
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