BOSTON—In the early stages of the showdown between Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., and President Bush, the media made a big deal about how both of the two major candidates were Yalies.

At the Democratic National Convention, though, the Crimson had a decent showing, with more than a handful of Harvard degree-holders taking the stage for speeches. Among these was Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm, who graduated from Harvard Law School.

On Wednesday night, during the prime-time broadcast slot, Granholm delivered a speech decrying how the economy is resulting in Americans “being squeezed.” She said that factories in the Midwest are bleeding jobs, and that Americans have had to accept worse jobs to replace the ones they lost when they were outsourced to other countries.

“Let me be clear. We want trade. We want lots of trade with other countries—robust trade,” Granholm said. “But we want it to be fair trade. John Kerry will fight to enforce our trade agreements.”

“Give us this leader with imagination and brilliance and an urgency to invest in us, in our future, in our infrastructure, in our emerging technologies, and in our children,” she said. “Give us John Kerry! Give us John Edwards!”

She concluded her speech, which compared Kerry to Paul Revere and maintained the motif’s of Boston’s role in the American Revolution, by saying, “Let us make the campaign trail our Freedom Trail. And let us follow that trail, all the way to the voting booth and ‘Kerry’ this nation forward.”

—Staff writer Alexander J. Blenkinsopp can be reached at blenkins@fas.harvard.edu.