Apple and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs may be nominated for TIME Magazine's Person of the Year for 2005. TIME runs a poll every year and asks people to nominate the person or people who have had the most effect, good or bad, on our world in the last year. Other nominees on the short list include Bill and Melinda Gates, Valerie Plame, Lance Armstrong, President Bush, Condi Rice, Mother Nature, Bono, the Google Guys, the new Pope, and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.

TIME has an unofficial poll you can vote in at the link above. Currently, J.K. Rowling is in the lead by a large margin. Methinks the Harry Potter fansites have been linking to the poll. Let the fanboy click-a-thon ballot-stuffing race begin!

Jobs isn't such a bad choice, but if given the option, I'd vote for the for all the people who volunteered their time and resources helping out after each of the string of natural disasters our planet has experienced in the last twelve months (Tsunami, Earthquake, Katrina...). I know that TIME's naming is supposed to be for the person who has most changed our world in in the last year, but I just can't bring myself to vote for an imaginary concept like Mother Nature. It's too gimmicky and silly for me.

Update: Ivan, over at one my favorite websites, Creative Bits, has mocked up some TIME covers of Jobs as Person of the Year. Great stuff!