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Time names Obama 'Person of the Year'

The cover of Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" issue.

For the second time, Time Magazine has named Barack Obama "Person of the Year."

"For finding and forging a new majority, for turning weakness into opportunity and for seeking, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union, Barack Obama is TIME’s 2012 Person of the Year," Time editor Richard Stengel writes.

(PHOTOS: TIME's "Person of the Year")

Time's Michael Scherer, who writes the lengthy profile on Obama for the issue, argues that the president has been given a mandate of sorts.

"He... begins his second term with a better sense of what is possible in his job as well as what is not... He has earned the right to set [the] direction and has learned from experience how to move the country," Scherer writes. "After four of the most challenging years in the nation’s history, his chance to leave office as a great President who was able to face crises and build a new majority coalition remains within reach."

President Obama was on a short list with Bill and Hillary Clinton (as a duo) and Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who blogged about her desire to go to school, among others. Time's "Person of the Year" in 2011 was "The Protestor"; in 2010 it was Facebok founder Mark Zuckerberg.

This post has been updated.