AFFNEY, S.C. - Maybe it's the country music playing on local radio. Or perhaps it's the billboards along the highway that ask: ''Troubled? Try prayer!''
But since last week, when Governor George W. Bush arrived here bruised from his New Hampshire primary defeat, the candidate, his Southwestern twang sounding deeper each day, has seemed more at ease in his surroundings than he ever was last month. And it's not just that his ''dubyas'' are more pronounced.
He delights in ribbing supporters at public events more than he did up north. This week, he has grown more expansive in his responses. He has laughed aloud at his own jokes. Yesterday, under sunny skies and 65-degree weather, he invited reporters to join him for a jog.
Bush is no doubt taking extra pains to show his lighter side, consciously working to show voters he still believes he can win, perhaps even indulging the good-natured ''good-ol' boy'' that was much noticed last year, but that seemed to dissipate, along with a chunk of his popularity, last month in New Hampshire. His 51 percent win in Delaware on Tuesday has clearly buoyed his spirits, too.
Yet as he wanders from Christian colleges to country music radio stations to barbecues, it appears that South Carolina itself may be a much-needed source of comfort for Bush. And from the moment the Texas governor flew in - noting, in his first speech after the New Hampshire primary, the ''warmer'' climate - it's been obvious the campaign feels much more at home here.
''This is the South,'' said Karen Hughes, communications director for the Bush campaign. ''I joke they understand our Texas accents here.''
Regardless of his location, Bush can ill afford to isolate himself from the public and media as he did last month, given his wide margin of loss in New Hampshire and a series of South Carolina polls that show Senator John McCain of Arizona pulling even with him in popularity. His liveliness this week could be as much a result of cool political strategy as of Southern sunshine.
At the same time, there are things Bush has not changed a bit. He exercised in New Hampshire, too. His accent was faded, but hardly gone. He even went out of his way to show his New England sportsmanship, riding on snowmobiles and sleds in the days leading up to the primary.
But it was carried off with none of the ease that Bush has exhibited in recent days. Even in Delaware, where Bush faced friendlier crowds, he still seemed to bristle at tough questions - as opposed to here, where yesterday he addressed an array of tricky issues, from the Confederate flag to abortion, with humor and force.
Tucker Eskew, the Bush press secretary for South Carolina, attributed the signs of southern comfort to the state's ''twangier aspects - and I mean that metaphorically.''
''I've noticed it from the beginning,'' Eskew said. ''When the governor's here, he feels at home. He's welcomed. He's energized, and he's feisty. If Governor Bush were campaigning in Wisconsin I think we'd see the same degree of energy and optimism ... but he's been coming here since the 1980s.''
Indeed, Bush has been coming here since the beginning of his father's national political career. And in many ways, in the age-old battle between Yankee politics and the rest of the country, George W. Bush is far more evolved as a Southern politician than his father ever was.
Although Bush, a Yale College and Harvard Business School graduate whose family spends its summers in Maine, faced accusations of carpetbagging during his 1978 congressional run, he has not lived outside the state since. Unlike his father, Bush spent his childhood there. His wife, Laura, was born and raised in Midland, Texas. But more than anything Bush seems to have an internal Southern ethos, one that crowds in this conservative Republican state appear to respond to.
Craig Nelson offers a striking example.
Last month, Nelson, an activist with the New York-based immigration advocacy group Project USA, traveled to Londonderry, N.H., to ask Bush a question about a particular trend in legal immigration.
Bush was stumped by the question. He paused and stammered. And it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the Town Hall meeting: Bush faced a series of harsh questions from a crowd of undecideds and independents, many of whom barely clapped.
Yesterday, Nelson was back - this time at Newberry College, a small Lutheran school in Newberry, S.C. Again, Nelson, 40, stood to ask Bush about legal immigration.
Bush, however, had the crowd behind him.
''Didn't I see you in New Hampshire?'' he asked. ''I thought you looked familiar.''
Over the laughter of the crowd, Nelson tried to ask his question. Bush joked, ''What was my answer last time?'' Then, as the questioner continued, Bush said: ''Nice to see you. You through? Yeah, OK. Sit down.''
Then Bush laughed. Before launching into an explanation of his views on immigration, he said, ''I'm teasing.'' The crowd roared.
Yesterday, Bush also continued to spar, via the media, with his chief rival, McCain.
Pointing to a year-old article from The Boston Globe, Bush quoted McCain as saying he would never take money from a political action committee in a presidential race. Then he issued a statement showing more than $300,000 McCain has received in PAC money so far. (Bush also accepts PAC money, and has raised about five times as much as McCain, or $1.5 million.)
McCain, however, said he was misquoted and has never eschewed PAC contributions. And he attacked Bush in return, saying yesterday that the Texas governor is an ''unwitting pawn if he won't support reform'' of the campaign-finance system. Later in the day, McCain, who came under fire Tuesday for releasing what the Bush campaign described as a negative ad, backed off from the line characterizing Bush as a pawn.
Yvonne Abraham of the Globe Staff, traveling with McCain, contributed to this report.
