Lansing — In the rotunda of the Michigan Capitol is a gallery of the official portrait of every Michigan governor, including Michigan’s first female governor, Jennifer Granholm. In it, she’s depicted as assured, confident, with one hand on her hip and the other one on a globe next to a miniature windmill.
Of course, she’s wearing the royal blue blazer and pantsuit, uniform of the girlbosses.
Dressed nearly identically in 2025, Gov. Whitmer had to hide behind a set of folders when she found herself in the most powerful office in the world.
Gov. Granholm was first elected in 1998 as Michigan Attorney General. Long before her career in politics, she tried to land an acting job in California when she appeared on the “Dating Game” in 1978. The Washington Post quoted her as saying, “Ronald Reagan once said you have to be a good actor to be a good politician, but the reality is that I was a lousy actress, and I can’t sing, and I can’t dance.”
In Granholm’s case, she was a bit of a “social media influencer” before she became a politician.
Gretchen Whitmer, on the other hand, is a career politician turned social-media influencer.
She, like Granholm, waited for the right moment to run for the governor’s office in 2018, becoming Michigan’s second female governor.
Some time in the last six years however, Whitmer has started spending most of her time making marketing videos for the Lions, trying on jackets, talking about menopause with Halle Berry, and creating an extremely offensive and cringeworthy moment in October when she appeared to give Dorito communion to social media influencer Liz Plank.
Since then, her online presence has only accelerated while an entire senate district goes without representation because she won’t call a special election and the “damn roads” still aren’t fixed.
Gretchen Whitmer seems to have moved in the opposite direction as Jennifer Granholm, and the blue blazers have been there for it all.
Granholm chose a classic royal blue blazer and pantsuit for her official portrait. It was there during her viral speech at the Democrat Convention in 2012, and it was there when she was sworn in as President Joe Biden’s energy secretary.
Gretchen Whitmer’s story is in its final chapter, but the blue blazer remains a consistent theme.
It was there when she issued emergency orders shutting down the State of Michigan, closing schools, sending Covid-infected patients to die alone in nursing homes, and banning seeds; and it was there last month when we witnessed the end of her political career when she appeared in the White House Oval Office, hiding behind a set of binders.
It’s too soon to know what the official portrait in Michigan’s rotunda will look like, but I’m not convinced it will be remembered better than the Oval Office shot.
Anna Hoffman is a hockey mom of three living in Ann Arbor. Follow her on X @shoesonplease.
