Palin arrived away from the hordes but greeted a few supporters outside who yelled, "We love you, Sarah!"
She shook several of their hands as she held her youngest child, Trig, on her hip.
Supporters told her, "God bless you," ''You're even lovier in person," and that she should run for president. She thanked them for coming and told them to "keep up the good fight."
"Wow. That pretty much made my week," said Mark Smith, 46, of the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, one of those who shook Palin's hand. "My knees are shaking. It was an adrenaline rush."
Once inside, she was met by Drew Sweatte, 23, of Palm Springs, Calif., who drove more than four hours and then waited for more than 24 hours to be the first to have his book signed.
"It was everything I hoped it would be and more," Sweatte said afterward. "You can just feel the sincerity and warmth and love from her. This is what I looked forward to more than anything else in life."
Sweatte said he thanked Palin for being consistent and told her he was praying for her and her family.
Palin began her book tour Nov. 19 in Michigan and is scheduled for 15 more signings across the country in the next 10 days.
The rules for the crowd were laid out by a spokesman for Palin's book tour, who said no personal photos of the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate were allowed, but attendees could pose with her and buy photos later from a Web site.
People in line also were required to be Costco members and show receipts that they bought "Going Rogue" at the discount retailer.
Fred Solop, a political science professor at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, said Palin events are attracting similar attention across the country.
"It's not typical that appearances like this are sold out, that politicians have such acclaim, but she's clearly a superstar in some circles," he said. "She's someone who is clearly making a splash nationally and we should all be watching to see what's next."
Sometimes it's hard to tell if Obama is really fouling up or simply puffed up when he tries to live up to his media-fed image as a leader ready for prime time.
Consider his claim during a news conference Wednesday in Israel that "just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran."
His committee? Obama isn't even a member of the Banking Committee, let alone its chairman. So was it a self-promoting lie or a misstep? Only he knows.
In other cases, however, it's clear the junior senator from Illinois has erred. It was Obama — and not a too-old-to-serve John McCain or a too-dopey-to-take-serious George W. Bush — who once said he'd visited 57 states, not including Alaska and Hawaii, and still had "one left to go."
It was also Obama who said Tuesday from Amman, Jordan: "You know, it's always a bad practice to say 'always' or 'never' " — a statement only Yogi Berra could fathom but which those aboard O-Force One seemed to regard as incontestably profound.
While the media have ensured that Obama's communication skills are now widely viewed to be impeccable, it's obvious that when the man doesn't have a teleprompter in front of him, he tends to mangle both facts and language.
How else to explain his "Face The Nation" comment that the leaders he would meet in the Middle East and Europe are the ones "who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years"?
Had a Republican candidate said that, he'd have been suspected of some dark plan to shred the Constitution and institute martial law.
A few days later, Obama goofed again, asserting that "Israel is a strong friend of Israel's." Sure, he meant America is a good friend of Israel. And sure, he knows the difference. But he's also sure the media will cover his howlers even as they ridicule Republicans when they are just as "inartful."
Maybe the media kept quiet because they know Obama's no better when it comes to geography. Surely they noticed how he confused Sioux Falls, S.D., with Sioux City, Iowa, claimed that Arkansas is closer to Kentucky than to Illinois, and called Iran — with population bigger than France's and a land mass four times that of Germany — "a tiny country."
Even worse, he claimed Iran doesn't "pose a serious threat to us," then somehow recalled the next day that he has indeed "made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."
Could it be that Obama is even worse with figures? It was in the spring of 2007, long before he could blame campaign fatigue for causing him to stumble, when he reckoned that tornadoes had killed 10,000 people in Kansas even though the real number was 12.
Obama's tendency to lapse into some rainbow world has apparently infected his staff. In discussing Obama's Berlin speech, a senior adviser first promised "it's not going to be a political speech." But then he added: "When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally."
The staffer had to be reminded: Obama isn't president — yet.
Or does that kind of thinking — that his coronation is a mere formality — start at the top? Earlier this month, it was Obama himself who reminisced about a time "when I was a United States senator."
Space won't allow a full list of Obama's blunders to date. But somehow we get the feeling we haven't heard the last of them.
That's just plain creepy.
Hey roadtrip, welcome back. You too, Junior Rooster.
How many times are you going to promise to quit the DNM message boards and then not follow through? I think the count is three times now.
Honestly, I didn't think anyone could have worse follow-through than Silly Sarah! ;)
And regardless of your opinion on Obama's policies I think we can all agree that it's nice to finally have someone in the White House who doesn't sound like a blithering idiot when he talks.