President Barack Obama, re-elected last month for a second four-year term, has been named Time’s Person of the Year.
This is the second time that Time has chosen Obama. He was named Person of the Year in 2008 for winning against the odds and becoming the first black president of the United States, Time said.
Here’s how Time explained the choice of President Obama this year:
Obama is the first Democratic President since FDR to win more than 50% of the vote in consecutive elections and the first President since 1940 to win re-election with an unemployment rate north of 7.5%. He has stitched together a winning coalition and perhaps a governing one as well. His presidency spells the end of the Reagan realignment that had defined American politics for 30 years. We are in the midst of historic cultural and demographic changes, and Obama is both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America. “The truth is,” the President said in the Oval Office, “that we have steadily become a more diverse and tolerant country that embraces people’s differences and respects people who are not like us. That’s a profoundly good thing. That’s one of the strengths of America.”
