MANCHESTER, N.H. — It was getting dark outside the Currier Museum of Art and the hundreds of people who had come to see Pete Buttigieg was growing restless, maybe even a little testy. They had lined up two hours early, on a Friday night no less, but still they were outside while several hundred luckier fans were inside swilling craft beer and noshing cheese and crackers. Nearly a dozen volunteers circulated clipboards with sign-up sheets to join the campaign while conveying the fire marshal’s edict that the museum was past its capacity of 300. “They’re hot,” I overheard one volunteer warn another. No campaign wants to book a space so large its nascent candidate can’t fill it, but no one wants to tick off potential voters before the candidate has even declared.

Into this potentially fraught moment strode the compact, running-fit young mayor of South Bend, Ind., a couple of minutes after the event’s 7:30 p.m. start. Instead of rushing into the museum, Buttigieg did the opposite. He bypassed the insiders to speak to the people in the parking lot. “I heard the way you ingratiate yourself to voters is to stand on things—so I found this park bench here,” he told the overflow crowd, flashing a wry grin. The crowd laughed. It was a subtle, Midwestern-nice jab at Beto O’Rourke’s penchant for climbing on tables and countertops, with an extra touch of ‘the last shall come first’ Christian ethos. And it neatly encapsulated a talent for throwing shade without sounding like a jerk that has turned the 37-year-old into the early surprise of the still-growing field of Democratic presidential hopefuls.