BOSTON — The conventional political wisdom on John Edwards’ selection as the vice presidential nominee: He’s from the South, and the party needs a Southerner to balance out the Boston Brahmin at the top of the ticket.

To many of the South Carolina delegates who support Sen. Edwards, that answer is wrong. To them, it’s who Mr. Edwards is and what he talks about, not where he was born. “He has the working man’s values,” said delegate Al Hanna of Ridgeway.

Sen. Edwards’ prominence is South Carolina’s greatest bragging point at this convention. Truly, though, the Palmetto State cannot take sole credit. His surprise second-place finish in the early Iowa caucus put him in the top rank of candidates. Winning in South Carolina certainly boosted him. “That’s the platform where he began to shine,” former White House press secretary Mike McCurry told fellow South Carolinians Wednesday morning. But being able to run well against John Kerry away from the South, in primaries in the Rust Belt Midwest and elsewhere, showcased his strength, and the appeal of his message.

At a convention where Sen. Kerry is the true guest of honor, the S.C. delegation is dominated by those who supported Sen. Edwards for the top job. Their man could not overcome Sen. Kerry as the primary season wore on, but Mr. Edwards’ supporters in the delegation have left any disappointment behind. Many sincerely wanted his near-miss campaign to be rewarded with the shot at the vice presidency, widely seen as a presidential bullpen.

Kathy Hensley, chairwoman of the Lexington County Democratic Party, campaigned at the state convention to be a delegate while wearing a button that said: Kathy Hensley for delegate/John Edwards for vice president. She supported Sen. Edwards because his background was so close to her own: Her father worked in a mill, where her mother also worked part-time, and they sent her to college, though they did not get to go themselves.

She dismisses the idea that Sen. Edwards’ role is to balance the ticket as overhyped by the media. She believes Sen. Edwards approaches people in a way that is “down-to-earth, that they’re not stepchildren.”

Delegates also cite his prowess as a stump speaker. “Edwards brought energy back to the party,” said state Rep. John Scott from Columbia. He especially connects with young people and middle- and working-class folks, Mr. Scott said.

He also has that accent.

“He talks like a Southerner,” as U.S. Rep. John Spratt said.

That twang, said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider, is a real political asset with voters, who think “if he’s a Southerner, he can’t be that liberal.”

His appeal might be a bigger asset with rural voters or with those worried about job losses in key swing states than it is in the South, where, Mr. Schneider said, the Kerry-Edwards ticket still faces long odds. It might be that Sen. Edwards’ selection helps Senate candidates in the South more than he boosts John Kerry there. His name will be a good fund-raising tool, at the least, for Democrats in the Carolinas.

“It means that they don’t have to recoil from the ticket,” Mr. Schneider said.

Some Republicans already are painting Sen. Edwards’ appeal to blue-collar voters as the fraud of a rich man in poor disguise: Look at his wealth and success!

Edwards delegates here are unfazed by that argument. “He hasn’t forgotten where he came from,” said Mr. Hanna of Ridgeway. “He came up poor.”

Columbia attorney Matthew Richardson, who worked for the Edwards campaign in South Carolina and around the country, even turns the affluence argument around. John Edwards’ success story is the kind of small-business-building that Republicans invoke, he said, but it’s the opposite of what George Bush and Dick Cheney did in their private lives.

The Republican attack line on Sen. Edwards seems ill-fated. He’s too good at evoking his mill worker roots. Open-minded voters likely will not hold his success against him, or see it as phony, especially when both tickets are full of millionaires. Much of Republican success with blue-collar and middle-class voters, in fact, is based in convincing them that their interests are best represented in the party that traditionally skewed more toward the wealthy.

Whatever Sen. Edwards’ role in the fall campaign, Mr. Schneider advises not to put too much stock in who’s on the bottom half of either ticket.

“People vote for president, not vice president, and I can prove it with one word:

“Quayle.”

Write to Mr. Fitts at mfitts@thestate.com.