Barack Obama Time Magazine: Named 'Person Of The Year' For Second Time
President Barack Obama has been named TIME magazine's "Person of the Year" for a second time after landing an impressive presidential re-election.
TIME's Managing Editor Rick Stengel revealed this year's honored figure on "TODAY" on Dec. 19, and explained why Obama was chosen.
"He's creating a new alignment, a kind of a realignment that Ronald Regan did a few years ago," Stengel said.
Obama was titled TIME's Person of the Year in 2008 after he won his first presidential election. In a new TIME blog post, Stengel referenced Obama's huge margin in the voting process and said the president's successful campaign strategy this year that targeted various minority groups - what Stengel called "a new majority" - was another reason he was named Person of the Year for 2012.
"There are many reasons for this, but the biggest by far are the nation's changing demographics and Obama's unique ability to capitalize on them," Stengel wrote. "He is the first president to embrace gay marriage and to offer work permits to many young undocumented immigrants.
For finding and forging a new majority, for turning weakness into opportunity and for seeking, amid great diversity, to create a more perfect union, Barack Obama is Time's 2012 Person of the Year."
Stengel also noted that there has been much talk of "the coalition of the ascendant," meaning minority groups, Hispanics, the youth and college-educated women. In winning re-election, Obama proved these groups "are not only the future but also the present," according to Stengel. He ended off his message about Obama with "If his win in 2008 was extraordinary, then 2012 is confirmation that demographic change is here to stay."
Obama sat down with TIME writer Michael Sherer for an interview at the White House and admitted that one of the reasons he may have won the presidency was because of the weak economy and the American people's need for change in the Oval Office. In the cover story, he also discussed his love for former President Abraham Lincoln and his dream of "just moving to Hawaii and opening up a T-shirt shack on the North Shore."
The president beat a list of nominees for the 2012 TIME honor, included the following: Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, President of Egypt Mohammed Morsi, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai - the 15-year-old Pakistani student activist who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban - and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
TIME magazine's 2012 Person of the Year issue arrives on newsstands Dec. 19.
