KEY POINTS:
Barack Obama has been named Time magazine's Person of the Year.
The US president elect, according to the magazine, has dominated the public sphere so completely in 2008, that "it beggars belief to recall that half the people in America had never heard of him two years ago."
"He hit the American scene like a thunderclap, upended our politics, shattered decades of conventional wisdom and overcame centuries of the social pecking order," the cover story continues.
"Understandably, you may be thinking Obama is on the cover for these big and flashy reasons: for ushering the country across a momentous symbolic line, for infusing our democracy with a new intensity of participation, for showing the world and ourselves that our most cherished myth - the one about boundless opportunity - has plenty of juice left in it."
A poll on the magazine's website showed that its readers agree - 77 per cent agreeing that Obama was the right choice.
Outgoing president George W. Bush was also named Person of the Year by Time, back in 2004 when his approval rating was considerably higher.
This year's runners up were Treasury Secretary Henry M Paulson; French president Nicolas Sarkozy; failed VP candidate Sarah Palin and Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
The NZ Herald named its New Zealanders of the Year earlier this month.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
