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COLUMBIA, S.C. -- In his frequent visits here during his 2008 presidential run, Mitt Romney often repeated the mantra that he was a "Yankee governor" with "Southern values."

Back then, most South Carolina Republicans didn't buy it.

Just four days after his come-from-behind victory in Michigan -- the state where he was born and raised -- Romney finished an inglorious fourth in the Palmetto State.

No matter how many backyard barbeques he attended or backs he slapped, Romney just did not seem to fit in. And it was not just because of his religion.

“Everybody thinks it was the Mormon thing, but it wasn’t,” said Wesley Donehue, a South Carolina consultant and member of Romney’s 2008 team. “It was a combination of Mormon, northeastern governor, flip-flopper, and the fact that he’s just so good-looking. So it was a combination of all four of those things that really made people here take a step back and say, ‘I really don’t know about this guy. I don’t think I can trust him.’ ”

Four years later, South Carolina appears to have warmed to Romney considerably.

For one thing, the perception of inevitability among GOP voters who are most interested in seeing President Obama defeated may outweigh any cultural barriers still in Romney’s path following his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. (He has a solid lead in the state in the RCP Average.)

But momentum isn’t the only thing on Romney’s side.

For a host of other reasons, the former Massachusetts governor appears to be a much better fit for South Carolina than he was four years ago.

According to Donehue, who is neutral in the race after a stint working for Michele Bachmann, the reason for Romney’s revitalized hopes here has more to do with a comfort level South Carolina Republicans have developed with him over time.

“Voters here have had four years to get to know him, so I think he’s really started to bridge that trust gap because he’s not new anymore,” Donehue said.

Along his path to victory in 2008, John McCain benefited in a similar way in the state that had nearly launched him toward the GOP nomination in 2000.

But Romney nonetheless faces at least one additional difficulty that the Arizona senator never had to surmount: The well-documented suspicion of Mormonism among many evangelicals here.

Still, Romney has already proven in Iowa that the religion challenge is one he can overcome -- albeit with the help of a divided field of socially conservative Christians.

And the face of South Carolina politics in 2011 is unrecognizable from what it was a generation ago.