No shocker, but you gotta love the picture they use for the cover.

From Time's cover essay Why History Can't Wait:

The real story of Obama's year is the steady march of seemingly impossible accomplishments: beating the Clinton machine, organizing previously marginal voters, harnessing the new technologies of democratic engagement, shattering fundraising records, turning previously red states blue -- and then waking up the day after his victory to reinvent the presidential-transition process in the face of a potentially dangerous vacuum of leadership. "We always did our best up on the high wire," says his campaign manager, David Plouffe. [...]

"Outside of specific policy measures, two years from now, I want the American people to be able to say, 'Government's not perfect; there are some things Obama does that get on my nerves. But you know what? I feel like the government's working for me. I feel like it's accountable. I feel like it's transparent. I feel that I am well informed about what government actions are being taken. I feel that this is a President and an Administration that admits when it makes mistakes and adapts itself to new information.'"

Can he really achieve all that? Plenty of voters will be happy if he aces only Item 1 on his list. But the essence of both Obama's strength and his promise is that, according to a recent poll, a strong majority of Americans believe he will accomplish most of what he aims to do. For having the confidence to sketch that kind of future in this gloomy hour and for showing the competence that makes Americans hopeful that he will pull it off, Barack Obama is Time's Person of the Year for 2008.

And here's Obama on his mandate:

Well, I think we won a decisive victory. Forty-seven percent of the American people still voted for John McCain. And so I don't think that Americans want hubris from their next President. I do think we received a strong mandate for change ... It means a government that is not ideologically driven. It means a government that is competent. It means a government, most importantly, that is focused day in, day out on the needs and struggles, the hopes and dreams, of ordinary people. And I think there is a strong mandate for Washington as a whole to be responsive to ordinary Americans in a way that it has not been for quite some time.

Congratulations, President-elect Obama on this much deserved honor and congratulations to the American people for getting it right this time.