Given how the year has gone, this is perhaps the least surprising POTY choice in years:
[C]risis has a way of ushering even great events into the past. As Obama has moved with unprecedented speed to build an Administration that would bolster the confidence of a shaken world, his flash and dazzle have faded into the background. In the waning days of his extraordinary year and on the cusp of his presidency, what now seems most salient about Obama is the opposite of flashy, the antithesis of rhetoric: he gets things done. He is a man about his business — a Mr. Fix It going to Washington. That’s why he’s here and why he doesn’t care about the furniture. We’ve heard fine speechmakers before and read compelling personal narratives. We’ve observed candidates who somehow latch on to just the right issue at just the right moment. Obama was all these when he started his campaign: a talented speaker who had opposed the Iraq war and lived a biography that was all things to all people. But while events undermined those pillars of his candidacy, making Iraq seem less urgent and biography less relevant, Obama has kept on rising. He possesses a rare ability to read the imperatives and possibilities of each new moment and organize himself and others to anticipate change and translate it into opportunity. (See pictures of Obama’s nation of hope.)
The real story of Obama’s year is the steady march of seemingly impossible accomplishments: beating the Clinton machine, organizing previously marginal voters, harnessing the new technologies of democratic engagement, shattering fundraising records, turning previously red states blue — and then waking up the day after his victory to reinvent the presidential-transition process in the face of a potentially dangerous vacuum of leadership. “We always did our best up on the high wire,” says his campaign manager, David Plouffe.
Of course, as James Joyner notes, being President pretty much means you’ll be named Person Of The Year at least once during your time in office:
George W. Bush won in both 2000 and 2004. Bill Clinton in 1992. George H.W. Bush lost out to “The Endangered Earth” in 1988 but got a makeup in 1990, Ronald Reagan won in 1980. Jimmy Carter in 1976, Richard Nixon (along with Henry Kissinger) in 1972, and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. John Kennedy was passed over in favor of “U.S. Scientists” in 1960 but got it in 1961. Harry Truman won in 1948. Franklin Roosevelt won in 1932, 1934, and 1941.
Since the award was established in 1928, the presidents who have been snubbed include: Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower. That’s the list. And Ike had won the honor as a general in 1944.
In fact, since 1960 the only sitting President who hasn’t been named Person of the Year at least once while in office is Gerald Ford; in 1974 King Faisal of Saudi Arabia got the nod, and in 1975 Time did one of their many “people of the year” issues instead of naming a single person.
This year, though, it’s fairly obvious that Barack Obama is the story of the year. He ran an campaign that seemed improbable at the start and became the first black President of the United States. Add in the fact that he’s taking office in the middle of international and economic turmoil, and you’ve got all you need.
Time also focuses on several runners-up, including Henry Paulson, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Sarah Palin, and for some reason the guy who produced the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
