Sarah Palin impersonator Patti Lyons took the country by storm when in 2011, she stormed into Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC, and impersonated Sarah Palin so convincingly that the mainstream media, including the FOX News, ABC, and more interviewed her as the real Sarah Palin. The Associated Press tweeted that the real Sarah Palin had arrived unexpectedly at CPAC, and Lyons found herself a trending topic on Twitter, the top story on Yahoo! News, and the subject of dozens of original stories and thousands of reposts around the country.

A memorable Tweet on the day of CPAC 2011 from The Daily Caller's Dave Weigel:

Heated discussion downstairs is whether this is Palin or a lookalike http://plixi.com/p/76425875

— daveweigel (@daveweigel)

Now, POLITICO has named Patti Lyons to the Top 10 CPAC Moments of All-Time, where she was ranked #3. Congratulations to Patti Lyons for this great accomplishment as a Sarah Palin impersonator.

From POLITICO's Kevin Cirilli: A Sarah Palin impersonator turned heads at the 2011 CPAC, and it wasn’t Tina Fey. Instead, it was Patti Lyons, a professional political impersonator who has appeared on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

Check out the complete list here.

Detroit — The real Mitt Romney couldn't make it this week. He was 1,000 miles away in Florida preparing Thursday afternoon to accept the GOP presidential nomination. It's probably for the best, since a rally hosted by Good Jobs Now — a coalition of community groups and labor supporters — featured plenty of anger toward economic proposals in Romney's platform. About 200 people turned up Thursday afternoon at Greening of Detroit Park for a rally that featured impressionist Jim Gossett in the role of an unwelcome Romney.

Detroit — The real Mitt Romney couldn't make it this week. He's roughly 1,000 miles away in Florida preparing to accept Thursday night the GOP presidential nomination. It's probably for the best, since the rally hosted by Good Jobs Now featured plenty of anger toward the economic proposals in the candidate's platform.

The art director on our Romney-vs.-Obama boxing-match photo shoot explains how it came together.

The brief
Every four years James Fallows previews the presidential debates. He's a big deal, it's a big deal. Four years ago the solution was to montage news shots of Obama and McCain on to a dramatic black background. It made, sense, looked good, a quick read—a successful cover. Let's do something like that.

The idea
How do we do a version that's relevant to this year? What's unique? It's going to be dirty. (Isn't it always?) So let's show them fighting. You know, really fighting. Illustration or photomontage? Remembered a shoot five or six years from New York magazine, where I then worked. British artist / photographer / provocateur Alison Jackson photographed lookalikes of Brad and Angelina with newborn baby.  (Back then, Adam Moss, New York's editor, had wanted to get the first baby shots, scooping People, Hello, and US Weekly. Trouble was the baby hadn't been born and we didn't want to pay $6 million for first rights—not that it would be offered. Funny.) So that's our idea: a fight with lookalikes of Mitt and Barack going at it in a boxing ring.

Wait! Is that Barack Obama joking around with Mitt Romney?

Passengers on this morning’s Virgin America flight from San Francisco to Washington D.C. could be forgiven for being confused when they saw the two Presidential contenders standing at their gate.

In-flight entertainment just took on a whole new meaning. In order to tout its new partnership with Rock the Vote, Virgin America hired Obama and Romney impersonators to fly with passengers on the airline’s new San Francisco to Washington, D.C., route. Impersonators Jim Gossett (Romney) and Reggie Brown (Obama) traversed a much shorter campaign trail than their real-life doppelgangers – only the length of the center aisle – to encourage a few more Americans to register to vote even before they touched the ground.

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney flew into Reagan National Airport Tuesday afternoon. Actually, it was not the real presidential candidates but impersonators, a way for Virgin America to let the Washington area know it has started a new nonstop service to and from San Francisco.

If on-demand movies, a 4,000 song playlist and onboard video games aren't enough to keep guests entertained on a Virgin America flight, the airline is now offering a complimentary new service to get passengers engaged before the November election — voter registration at 35,000 feet.

Virgin America, in a partnership with Rock the Vote, debuted an in-flight voter registration program with a little help from President Obama and Mitt Romney today — or at least two guys doing their best to look like them. Presidential impersonator Reggie Brown portrayed Obama, while Jim Gossett dressed as Romney.

While Republicans and Democrats cross swords over voter registration in several states, they might want to pause at some point and look up at any Virgin America flight they happen to see in the sky today.

Because that’s where new opportunities for voter registration are headed – 35,000 feet in the air.