ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times

Sun Hee Muskopf stands outside Barnes & Noble with her signed copies of "Going Rogue." She began waiting at 8 a.m. Saturday and was first in line.

Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.

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Sarah Palin last blew through town a little more than a year ago, on a swing for the first losing GOP presidential campaign in Virginia since 1964.

But if anything was clear from the heroine-worshipping, autograph-seeking throng Sunday morning at Valley View Mall, it's that the phenomenon known as Palinmania shows no signs of abating.

Her admirers began forming outside Barnes & Noble at 8 a.m. -- Saturday. They came from Richmond, Fairfax, Fredericksbug, Galax, North Carolina and beyond.

Their numbers grew into the thousands by the time Palin herself stepped off her shrink-wrapped tour bus to loud cheers of, "We love you, Sarah!" just before 10 a.m. Sunday.

First in that queue was Sun Hee Muskopf, who described herself as "very meek" and a "normal housewife" from Southwest Roanoke County.

But Muskopf's demeanor was anything but meek Sunday morning, even though she had been awake for more than 26 hours.

With words, gestures and a passion that seemed as purple as Palin's trademark blazer, the outraged mother of three pleaded with me to "hear our anger."

She chewed up Washington's senators and representatives en masse and (figuratively) spit them out with disgust all over the bookstore sidewalk.

"Every time I turn on the TV, there's another corrupt official," Muskopf said. "This one is corrupt. That one is corrupt. But they pat each other on the back and call each other 'my distinguished colleague.' "

Muskopf was not alone Sunday in pronouncing Palin the best tonic for a political system rife with such ills.

"I can personify her in one word: honest," said Dave Kelsheimer of Rocky Mount, who was in line with his wife, Kyle. "She is the antithesis of the crap we're sinking in up in Washington. I think everyone in this line would say our values and her values are similar."

"I think people are ready for something much different than the status quo," said Charles Knight of Charlottesville, who took second place in line when he joined Muskopf at noon Saturday. "She would make the proper calls. Judgment and fortitude can go a long way."

"Her policies are total conservatism all the way," said Marlin Thompson of Boones Mill. "From a strong national defense to monetary policy to against abortion -- all the way down the line, I can't think of anything I disagree with her on."

"She is so beautiful and so personable," said Betty Dudding of New Castle. Dudding and her daughter, Olivia, proudly showed off their four signed copies of "Going Rogue: An American Life," as they exited the store.

Nearly every one of Palinmaniacs I talked to expects her to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. A handful wore the sentiment on their clothing.

Ed Perry of Richmond, the only black person I saw in that crowd, had "Sarah Palin for President 2012" stitched into the back of his black leather jacket.

He said Palin seized his hand and called him "a brave man" when she eyed the slogan in the book-signing line.

Most of Palin's supporters I talked to acknowledged that they had never heard of her until Sen. John McCain plucked her from obscurity last year and made her his running mate.

They didn't care that she had quit the governorship of Alaska to personally cash in -- for millions -- with a ghostwritten-book bonanza.

Or that the last elected office for which Palin finished her term was mayor of a town smaller than Vinton.

When you wade into a pool of Palinmania like the one that collected outside Valley View on Sunday morning, you realize that stuff doesn't matter.

Before you know it, you're up to your hips in the same kind of cult of personality for which conservative critics blasted supporters of President Obama.

The passion runs deep in that pool (and so does the suspicion of all media save Fox News).

But the generalizations behind those passions are sound-bite shallow.

For that reason, the water seems rather murky.