Before Pete Buttigieg was born in 1982, the now-shuttered brokerage house, E.F. Hutton, began running a famous series of TV commercials touting their ability to predict the fluctuations in the stock market. In one emblematic spot, the mere mention of the firm’s name in a posh restaurant prompts everyone, including the waiters, to eavesdrop for investment tips. The tag line from the ad campaign: “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.”

Watching the way that people listen to a presidential candidate is a surprisingly good indicator of raw political talent. In September 2006, at the annual Tom Harkin Steak Fry near Des Moines, a fledgling Illinois senator named Barack Obama (not yet a presidential candidate) mesmerized 3,500 Iowa Democrats. I knew then, studying the rapt expressions on people’s faces as they listened to Obama deliver his first political speech in Iowa, that 2008 would be his year. The Iowa Democrats all looked like extras from Frank Capra’s movie Meet John Doe.

Needless to say, in 2016, neither major Democratic candidate rewarded intense listening. Hillary Clinton offered predictable bromides and Bernie Sanders has a passion for yelling. But this time around, Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old gay mayor of a small Indiana city (South Bend) half the size of Des Moines, is acing the listening test. His words, even in a stump speech, tend to be more thoughtful and more surprising than the standard political applause lines of his rivals. Elizabeth Warren often elicits cheers, Joe Biden gets the occasional affectionate chuckle, but Buttigieg summons up a different reaction. I first noticed it while seeing him at a Des Moines house party on a sparkling Saturday morning in June. As with Obama in 2006, members of the audience leaned forward to listen to Buttigieg speak rather than sitting back to applaud politely. What struck me at the time was that Buttigieg was pulling off this listening trick even though he lacked the national political profile that Obama boasted back in 2006, from his electrifying speech to the 2004 Democratic convention.

I looked for a repeat of this response when Buttigieg spoke at the sprawling Polk County Steak Fry in September. A clump of Democrats—not visibly aligned with any candidate although there were a few “Beto” signs around—were seated in lawn chairs 300 feet from a stage filled with pumpkins and hay bales. Seven other presidential candidates had already made their 10-minute pitches when Buttigieg stood up to deliver his.

“If everything is going well in this country, a guy like Donald Trump never is able to take over a political party, let alone get within cheating distance of the Oval Office,” Buttigieg declared. Then he added the tried-and-true follow-up line that quietly challenged Biden’s belief in the politics of restoration: “And we’re not going to be able to replace this president if we think he’s just a blip, just an aberration. It’s going to take more than that.”