In a sign Obama-mania is still going strong, the American Society of Magazine Editors' (ASME) has added a new category in its search for the year's top US magazine covers: the best one featuring Barack Obama.

The covers of US magazines which appeared between July 2008 -- when the US president was still an Illinois senator -- and June 2009 are eligible to enter the contest.

There are nine other categories ranging from the sexiest to the best news and business cover, ASME said Monday as it posted a call for entries.

A panel of judges drawn from the magazine publishing world will select six finalists in each category, and the short-listed covers will be posted on www.amazon.com.

There, the general public will vote in each category. The eventual winners in each class will be eligible to vie for the title of cover of the year -- which means Obama will definitely be elected once, and could be elected twice.

If Obama wins the cover of the year title, he will find himself in the company of disgraced New York ex-governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned last year after it was revealed he frequented call girls.

New York magazine won the overall title last year with its cover featuring a smiling Spitzer and the word "brain" in a red box with an arrow pointing to what ASME called "the area of Spitzer’s anatomy that seemed to have been thinking for him."

Obama won a category last year -- "best leisure interest" -- for the "summer issue" cover of New York magazine which he shared with his presidential rival, John McCain.

The montage cover shows the two then White House rivals in swimming trunks, lounging on deck chairs on the beach, giving each other a fist-jab.

(Agencies)