Mania for Sarah Palin is a big mystery

I don't get the BCS. Don't get it at all.

I don't get why banks are making it so hard to get a loan when the main reason the economy is staggering is because people can't get loans.

I don't get why Americans watch so many shows about dancing.

I don't get how Taylor Swift can be considered country.

But what I really don't get is Sarah Palin.

I haven't understood Sarah Palin since I first heard her name as John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential election, may it forever rest in peace.

She was a first-term governor from a far flung state; she and McCain did not win, didn't even come close; she told a bunch of misleading untruths, if not outright lies, about the bridge to nowhere and other myths; she bought a lot of clothes on other people's credit cards; and then, as a kind of encore, she quit as Alaska's governor 18 months before her term was up.

It seems to me her chief claim to fame is she looks like Tina Fey.

And yet, there she was Wednesday, signing copies of her new book, "Going Rogue," at the Salt Lake Costco as hundreds lined up to meet her.

Mob scenes like the one at Costco are being replicated all across the country. The book has already sold over a million copies! In three weeks!

I needed help to understand what fuels the Sarah Palin express. I turned to the most obvious suspects: the first people waiting in line at Costco.

They were, by name, Shirley McClay and Gilda Brooks, both of Logan, and Kathy Larsen of Layton. All three women recently made the acquaintance of their 60s. They are mothers and grandmothers, and Tuesday night they slept on the sidewalk outside the store in near-zero weather so they could meet their hero.

I asked them if they do this sort of thing normally. Gilda said never. Shirley said not since she stood in line for the Righteous Brothers when she was a teenager, and that wasn't overnight. Kathy said she'd never camped out for anything in her life, but added, "Although I did see 'Sound of Music' seven times."

So why now? Why this? Why her?

Kathy spoke up first. "It's because she's such an incredible woman," she said. "I heard her speak at that (2008 Republican) convention and I thought, 'Oh, my gosh. This is a woman I can relate to.' "