Sarah Palin is neither gone, nor forgotten.

The governor of Alaska was the recent topic of the Great Falls Forum at the Lewiston Public Library. Stephanie Kelley-Romano, an associate professor of rhetoric at Bates College, waxed wildly about the GOP’s fascinating vice presidential candidate. “This woman interests me, to say the least,” Kelley-Romano says.

She professed herself as part of the academic groundswell obsessed with all things Palin. They even have a name for their field: “Palintology.”

(Instead of old bones, their artifacts are archived video clips from “Saturday Night Live” and YouTube.)

Palin was “rock-star glamorous” in her first speech at the Republican National Convention, says Kelley-Romano, capping a debut that was “rhetorically brilliant” by pilfering the spotlight from then-Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

In rhetoric, Palin is marveled as a specimen, who expanded and redefined boundaries of gender and social classes in politics with her winks, catchphrases, pronunciation, delivery, behavior, humor and huge media response.

All the kinds of stuff, in other words, that academics just love to analyze.

In evaluating Palin, however, one must acknowledge everything.

In her smashing debut at the GOP convention, watched by 37 million Americans, Palin was presented as – rhetorically speaking – the perfect vice president: a staunch but submissive ally, effusive in praise for the boss, but unfiltered in criticism of opponents. Her disarming speaking style made her sarcastic barbs even sharper.

Yet, following her speech, Palin’s rhetoric ceased being a strength and turned into a weakness. Unscripted national television interviews portrayed her as fumbling and unprepared, and eroded the image from her first appearance. Her disarming speaking style failed to build confidence in her ability to be vice president.

Then came “Saturday Night Live’s” satirical brilliance – boosting the show’s ratings 40 percent, by the way – which became the tipping point. Spot-on send-ups of Palin by lookalike Tina Fey solidified her persona as farce, with the crescendo being Palin’s own odd appearance on the variety show.

Her participation in a skit that encouraged the “mavericks” in the room to wave their hands in the air blurred reality and satire. Kelley-Romano called Palin’s endurance of other SNL-sponsored criticism to her face “offensive.”

This creates a conundrum. Though Palin showed rhetorical brilliance, her ticket’s defeat on Election Day begs the question of whether she was effective. Is it good rhetoric, if it fails to resonate with voters when it counts?

This is great fodder for academics to ponder. But when they say, as Kelley-Romano did, that if Palin had spoken more like Hillary Clinton, not like Sarah Palin, she would have done better, what does this say about her rhetoric?

What it says is that Palin’s rhetoric said many things, to many people.

And that results speak for themselves.