Khaddafi. The only way it’s not him is if they can’t figure out which spelling to use. Incidentally, I had no idea the Person of the Year list was so Ameri-centric these days, and I’m a TIME subscriber!
Pippa Middleton. No particular reason, I just want to see more pictures of her.
Eh, he didn’t really do anything this year but die. He was more the person that events happened to then the driver of those events.
Plus TIME has had a pretty well established ‘no villains’ policy for the last 30 years.
But they picked George W Bush twice!
I keed, I keed.
It’s not about whether people did anything. It’s about who was newsworthy. Anyway, they don’t have a no-villains policy. They just don’t pick people who will piss off US readers. Frankly, I think one of the very best things about TIME is that it was willing to admit that Stalin and Hitler were the most important people in the world for a time.
While that was true of Obama, I don’t think it is generally true.
Should be Bouazizi.
Probably will be Jobs, though who knows.
If they wanted a guy for the European debt crisis, Jean-Claude Trichet is a possibility.
What did Ken Starr accomplish? George W. Bush? Giuliani? Ben Bernanke?
The Japanese people.
A better choice would be Michael S Hart, who invented the e-book exactly 40 years ago.
And founded Project Gutenberg, the largest online library in the world.
And fought against the continuing removal of books from the public domain, via various extensions of copyright and the DMCA.
Elizabeth Warren
Rupert Murdoch
The Republican Debating Squad
The Penn State Football Staff
The United States House of Representatives
(Gee, I hate leaving Elizabeth in there with all that crowd…)
Penn State? Seriously? You think anyone outside the US knows or gives a shit about that?
Technically, you could say the same of Bouazizi.
Its the person or persons who “has done the most to influence the events of the year.”
Getting elected President of the US is a pretty large achievement.
Also note they’ve never done a posthumous “Person of the Year”, which suggests they aren’t really looking to make it the “obit of the year”, and probably won’t choose Jobs.
Here’s a link to Who should be TIME’s Person of the Year 2011? The article implies that the choice will be from this list. Seems to me that the most likely choices are Erdoğan or the Arab Youth Protesters. Of the U.S. candidates, could be “The 99%” but not after TIME selected “You” in 2006. Maybe Michele Bachmann. Steve Jobs was certainly newsworthy but he didn’t do much in 2011 that had a big impact. Hmmm … maybe it will be Siri. 
And definitely not Bouazizi.
Nobody’s mentioned Julian Assange? Sure, he’s not my pick, probably not in the top 3 even, but he deserves more of a mention than anyone in the Republican field or Penn State
It seems to me that Time’s selections fall into three general groups, and that most candidates are not pure members of any one group but straddle two or even all to a greater/lesser extent:
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Well-known persons who are the acknowleged leader or champion of an accepted world power–Putin and Obama most recently fit this category, and while older choices generally fall in this category, it’s not as common in the past 30+ years.
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A lesser-known and generally more abstract representative of an acknowledged social movement or trend–I’m thinking Jeff Bezos, Andrew Grove, and the non-specific “persons” like the Computer, You!, Good Samaritans, etc. These are usually harder-to-defend choices, but they appear to be more common these days.
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Choices based on pure celebrity. Not so common–Ted Turner and Peter Ueberroth might be the closest we’ve had to this in recent times–but always an X-factor–Wallis Simpson won it in 1936 for Chrissakes!
Given the trend toward #2, I think Mohammed Boazizi would be a favorite except for the fact he is a “pure” (2). That’s why I suggested Christine Lagarde, a woman profiled on 60 minutes earlier this year (some celebrity among the intelligentia), certainly representative of larger trends (the Great Recession, high-finance, income inequality as it relates to rich/poor European nations–plenty of topics to pad out a full issue), and she’s the leader of the IMF. A little of all 3–plus the cache of naming a woman for the first time since Corazon Aquino in 1986–goes a longer way toward her winning.
You know, I just have to say, since this topic doesn’t come up often, I’m still bitter that Time was too cowardly to put Osama bin Laden as Person of the Year in 2001. Who did they put instead, Giuliani or Bush right? The problem is that too many people think the Person of the Year is an award or an honor when it is simply supposed to be a reflection of reality. Bin Laden was the most influential person that year and possibly the next. Half the world changed because of what he inspired and we’re still feeling the repercussions. He should honestly be Person of the Decade for 2001-2010 really
They chose Giulliani that year. And yea, I agree that if it was really an attempt to decide who “has done the most to influence the events of the year.” it would’ve easily been bin Ladin. The actual article in the magazine said as much.
But again, for better or worse, they have had an unofficial “no villains” policy since the 80’s, so the actual award is for the person who “has done the most to influence the events of the year.” whom Americans don’t hate.
We should start an SDMB person of the year award and do it up right.
How about the unknown member of Seal Team 6 who pulled the trigger and killed bin Laden? It would sell a lot of magazines.