In a statement provided by the Buttigieg campaign, Love said that he saw the similarities between the mayor and Obama that Buttigieg has tried to play up as his candidacy has heated up.

“A lot of what is said about Pete echoes what critics said about presidential candidate Barack Obama – too young, too different, maybe another time – but I believe there is never a better time to fight for change than right now,” he said, adding that he believes “the younger generation needs to take a more active participation in the leadership and the direction of this country” at all levels of politics.

“Pete can galvanize a new electoral body that is a more accurate representation of what America actually is,” he contended.

The 37-year-old mayor has long painted his candidacy as a chance for much-needed generational change at a time when the party’s top three frontrunners over the last several months — and the current occupant of the White House — are all in their 70s.

Austan Goolsbee, who advised Obama during his 2008 campaign and served as the president’s chief economic adviser as Obama steered the country out of recession, also pointed to similarities in enthusiasm he’d seen for Buttigieg on the campaign trail.

“It has been awhile since I have seen the kind of excitement on the ground in Iowa that Mayor Pete has generated,” he said in a statement released by the campaign. “And the last time worked out pretty well.”

The endorsement of Linda Douglass, who served as the primary spokesperson during the Obama administration’s push to pass the Affordable Care Act, comes as Buttigieg has taken a more moderate tack than his liberal rivals and begun to push back more forcefully on their "Medicare for All" plans with a more incremental approach he's labeled "Medicare for All Who Want It."

"I met Pete a few years ago and admire his intelligence, wisdom and extraordinary ability to communicate clearly and powerfully about the challenges we face today,” Douglass said in a statement released by the campaign, also emphasizing the need for generational change. “He is passionate about public service and about improving the lives of Americans in every part of the country. I am excited by the prospect of a leader who comes from a new generation and who represents that generation’s unique understanding of what the future may hold."

Buttigieg's emphasis on comparing his rise in Iowa with that of Obama's in 2008 comes as former Vice President Joe Biden has staked a great deal of his campaign on his closeness with the former president.

