And the Conservative of the year is... Sarah Palin!

According to Sarah Palin, the biggest mistake made by the Republicans during the presidential election campaign was to prevent the Alaskan governor from doing more interviews.

"I was not allowed to do very many interviews, and the interviews that I did were not necessarily those I would have chosen," said the former vice-presidential candidate, who was roundly mocked in the media when, in the interviews she did give, she was unable to name a newspaper she read and claimed that being able to see Russia from her house gave her foreign policy experience.

Palin also told the Human Events newspaper, the self-styled 'headquarters of the conservative underground', that had she been a senator she would have opposed the US car industry bail-out . She also used the interview to reiterate her working-class roots and her faith in God’s guidance. The 44-year-old also stated that Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski's seat is "not in [her] sights".

While Time magazine last week announced Barack Obama as the winner of their coveted 'Person of the Year' title, Human Events has given "beauteous" Palin their 'Conservative of the Year' award. Why? "For her genius at annoying all the right people" according to right-wing poster-girl Anne Coulter: "The last woman to get liberals this hot under the collar would have been … let's see now … oh, yeah: Me!"

The election campaign, says Coulter, was a dull and predictable affair until "our heroic Sarah bounded out of the Alaska tundra and it became a completely different race." The two months after Palin "reared her beautiful head" were "glorious" and "in time, Human Events 2008 Conservative of the Year will be ready to be our President and someday can sweep into office and dismantle all the heinous government programs Obama and the Democrats are about to foist on the nation."

LAST UPDATED 5:15 PM, DECEMBER 23, 2008