S R Sidarth, the 22-year-old University of Virginia student, is now a paid staffer in the communications office of Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson.

Sidarth rose to instant fame. The accolades that he received included online magazine Salon’s person of the year in 2006 and a profile in Time magazine, after Republican senator George Allen called him a ‘macaca’ (a racial slur for dark-skinned people).

Sidarth works in Richardson’s Santa Fe office compiling daily newspaper articles for the New Mexico governor, drafting press releases and performing other communication tasks, according to the Washington Post.
In 2006, he had volunteered for Allen’s challenger, Democrat Jim Webb, shadowing Allen with a video camera, hoping to catch him offguard.

The ‘Macaca’ clip recorded over 300,000 hits on YouTube, the popular online video streaming site, questioning Allen’s commitment to diversity and forcing him to repeatedly apologise. The episode destroyed Allen’s prospect for the US presidency.

Sidarth, who is majoring in  government as well as engineering and wants to study law, is a Capitol Hill intern for Senator Joseph Lieberman.

He won a coveted spot late last year in his university professor Larry Sabato’s seminar on campaigns and elections, with a three-word essay — “I am Macaca.”