USTIN, Texas - When he learned he had won the crucial South Carolina primary, George W. Bush settled in for a midafternoon nap.
When he heard about his bruising defeat in Michigan, Bush played ''airbowl'' on his campaign plane, pitching grapefruits down the aisle.
And Tuesday afternoon, as supporters anxiously awaited the results of the biggest primary day of the campaign, Bush went for a run. He ate some gumbo. His wife, Laura, went to Home Depot and picked up a few doormats.
If the last two months have been among the most fascinating and turbulent in recent political history, it would be hard to know it by observing George W. Bush.
But what may be most remarkable about the outward ease of the Republican front-runner is that it seems to have worked. Just six weeks ago, when the blazing enthusiasm of John McCain's personality first captured public attention, critics assailed Bush as too blase. Supporters fretted about the ''fire in the belly,'' fearing he had none. Compared to his opponent, critics said, Bush showed little zest for life at all.
The intervening weeks have offered an intriguing glimpse into the way emotions play out in politics. While Bush remained eerily even-tempered in both victory and defeat, McCain increasingly took his rhetoric to fiery new extremes, at times seeming to thrill in saying politically dangerous things.
And while that forthright, risk-taking spirit is exactly what drew so many to McCain in the first place, he appears to have suffered in the March 7 primaries in part because of the advantage he handed Bush: Of looking steady and predictable, just what many voters say they want their leaders to be.
''I don't think it's always an unvarnished blessing. But I think Republicans like it,'' Professor Bruce Buchanan, a presidential specialist at the University of Texas at Austin, said of Bush's dispassionate approach. ''Bush has had to control himself. At times, he seems overscripted as a result of that. ... But Republicans like conventionality. If Bush is anything, he's a conventional Republican politician, in the sense that he's a team player.''
Bush, 53, has not always exhibited the peculiar blend of ambition and nonchalance that also defined the successful career of his father, president George H.W. Bush.
In his younger years, in fact, Bush showed traces of the rebelliousness he apparently inherited from his mother, Barbara, playing pranks at Andover and Yale and, once, reportedly arriving at his parents' home and challenging his father to fight ''mano a mano'' outside. As his father's adviser in the 1988 and 1992 presidential races, Bush became legendary among reporters for his temper, often dressing down those who wrote about his father in a way he didn't like.
Today, Bush says the temper was an act. ''That was his job in 1988. His job was to get in the faces of people he didn't like,'' said Karl Rove, his senior campaign adviser and a close friend.
Whether true or not, Bush has clearly learned to project equanimity since those days. Especially in the face of aggression from a foe.
Repeatedly throughout the Republican primary, as McCain fired off-the-cuff barbs, Bush refused to fight back in a similar tone. When McCain delivered a searing concession speech after losing the South Carolina primary, accusing Bush of running an excessively negative campaign, Bush bit his tongue.
''I guess you can test ... a leader by how they react to adversity,'' Bush simply said.
A week later, when McCain began attacking Bush for his visit to Bob Jones University, the Texas governor expressed more disappointment than anger.
And after McCain attacked religious conservative leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as ''evil,'' Bush more or less shrugged.
Some argued Bush could well afford to remain calm; offstage, third-party advocacy groups, including Robertson himself, were making incendiary statements on his behalf, and the Bush campaign ran some very aggressive ads. But the net effect was that Bush himself appeared, to the public at least, to have stayed above the fray.
''I was surprised Bush didn't make more of the concession speech,'' Brown University political science Professor Darrell West said. ''It was filled with intemperate outbursts, and it really related to the earlier issue of the campaign, of McCain's basic personality.''
But, West said: ''It was probably good for Bush to keep a little personal distance from being the messenger on a personal charge.''
The origin of Bush's dispassion is up for debate among friends and advisers, several of whom say he is merely keeping his intense competitiveness under wraps.
According to Rove, Bush is simply thick-skinned about his own career, far less sensitive to personal barbs than he was to insults to his father eight years ago.
According to Marvin Olasky, an informal adviser to Bush, the governor's easy ways derive from an idyllic home life. Indeed, Bush, who has been married for 22 years, often seemed, even in the thick of the primary battle, as though he would rather just be at home. And often - including last week, when he scheduled two nights at home despite the demands of campaigning for March 7 - Bush seems determined to put the tribulations of politics aside, even if only for a few hours a day.
''I think he enjoys politics, but if he loses, it's not going to destroy him,'' Olasky said. ''Here's a guy who has a life other than politics and running for president. He wants to be president. But if he loses, as he did in New Hampshire, he's not going to go berserk.''
All observers agree on one point: Bush learned the value of self-control during his 1994 gubernatorial race.
His opponent that year, then-governor Ann Richards, was a wildly popular Democrat who many believe lost to Bush because of his tough stance on crime. But she was also hot-headed. Offended by his presence in the race, Richards took to ridiculing Bush, nicknaming him ''Shrub'' and calling him ''that boy.'' At one point, according to several accounts, Richards mocked his motivation, saying, ''You can't just look in the mirror one morning and decide, `I'm so good-lookin', I should run for office.'''
Bush never took the bait. He reacted to Richards's barbs with ''disappointment.'' Rather than address her criticisms outright, Bush ignored them, saying he wanted to ''elevate'' the dialogue. According to columnist Molly Ivins, Bush replied to the remark about his reason for running this way: ''My mission is to keep the debate at a level where we talk about the future of our state, not focus on all kinds of silly stuff and one-liners and try to tear each other apart.''
It seemed to work.
Bush won despite never having held public office before, despite Richards's high popularity ratings, despite the fact that only one other Republican had held the post since Reconstruction.
''Tactically,'' said Rove, ''I think it helped because people saw in him what they wanted in a leader.''
McCain, who shot out of the New Hampshire primary overflowing with passion and seemed at first to have built a candidacy on sheer emotion, always risked being cast as a volatile character, by comparison to Bush. A Vietnam prisoner of war for more than five years, McCain was dogged early in his campaign by whispers about his ''instability.'' While he overcame those doubts early on, his inflammatory remarks seemed ultimately to undercut his prospects. Many Bush supporters contend it was McCain himself who led the public to question his state of mind.
''For McCain, it [his passion] was mostly sold as a plus,'' said Mark C. Allen, a pollster for Bush. ''To those who know him better, I think they consider it a minus. The question, I think, going forward, will be: How do people absorb this persona of Bush?''
