{"id":19518,"date":"2026-03-03T02:31:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T02:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/centrist-dems-met-to-plot-2028-then-iran-happened\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T02:31:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T02:31:58","slug":"centrist-dems-met-to-plot-2028-then-iran-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/centrist-dems-met-to-plot-2028-then-iran-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"Centrist Dems met to plot 2028. Then Iran happened."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

CHARLESTON, S.C. \u2014 Hours after the American military strikes in Iran started, Third Way co-founder Matt Bennett scrambled to write up a presentation on how centrist Democrats should talk about foreign policy in 2028.<\/p>\n

On stage during Third Way\u2019s \u201cWinning the Middle\u201d conference, Bennett described focus groups before the war in Iran started, where \u201cthe appetite for ongoing war among the voters we talked to was zero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though Americans usually default to Republicans on national security, they\u2019re concerned about President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cerratic\u201d and \u201cunstable\u201d foreign policy, he told a crowd of early-state strategists, Democratic consultants and aides for prominent moderates and 2028 contenders. That, he added, gives Democrats the opening they need to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters are going to ask, \u2018who can steady the ship? Who\u2019s going to avoid another endless war? Will we demand fairness from our allies?\u2019\u201d Bennett said during his presentation. \u201cYou must be decisive and you must be clear that American self-interest will drive your foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The American strikes in Iran reverberated through what was meant to be a domestic-focused conference on Monday, as the party starts to grapple with how to respond to a military maneuver that could become a flashpoint in the midterms. So far, Democrats have been largely united in attacking Trump for authorizing the attacks without Congress\u2019 approval \u2014 or a clear exit strategy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a notable departure for moderates, some of whom backed the Iraq War in 2003, including then-Sen. Hillary Clinton. Her vote, and then-Sen. Barack Obama\u2019s vote against it, would define much of the 2008 presidential primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats don\u2019t want a replay of the Iraq War and they are heeding the calls of the American people to focus on issues here at home,\u201d Doug Thornell, a Democratic strategist who advised Maryland Gov. Wes Moore\u2019s campaign, said at the conference in an interview. \u201cThis administration has done very little to make the case that this is something worth the blood and treasure of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"At<\/p>\n

There\u2019s early evidence voters broadly disapprove of the Iran strikes<\/a>: A Reuters\/Ipsos poll found that<\/a> only one in four Americans support Trump\u2019s decision \u2014 a data point that zinged around Democrats\u2019 group chats during the afternoon\u2019s presentations.<\/p>\n

Mentions of Iran were limited during the conference\u2019s panels, which drilled in on domestic issues: \u201c\u2018Affordability\u2019: Buzzword or Breakthrough,\u201d and \u201cElevating Moderate Voices Online.\u201d But within minutes of kicking off the event Sunday night, Third Way president Jon Cowan addressed the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can hate the regime in Iran and you can celebrate their downfall, but you can also have legitimate skepticism about the war because you can have doubts about Trump’s truthiness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Online and in TV interviews, some fractures have begun to emerge.<\/p>\n

Several progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have pushed for an immediate end to the war. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who is running for governor, called for \u201cvalues-based arguments against war with Iran,\u201d and \u201cNOT process (\u2018Come to Congress\u2019) ones,\u201d in an X post on Saturday.<\/a> That\u2019s an apparent reference to Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffriees and battleground lawmakers who\u2019ve taken a more measured response<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jeffries, in his initial statement<\/a>, condemned Trump for failing to seek congressional authorization and called for Iran to be \u201caggressively confronted.\u201d Jeffries said Monday morning on BLN that \u201cnothing has been presented to justify what’s taken place up until this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crutch that the moderate, corporate wing of the party is using is a process argument,\u201d said Usamah Andrabi, Justice Democrats\u2019 communications director. \u201cIt’s not just that Trump didn’t come to Congress first, we need to oppose this war no matter the process and Democratic leadership has not done that clearly enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

One adviser to a potential 2028 candidate, granted anonymity to speak candidly, defended the more nuanced approach from moderate Democrats as a reflection of \u201cpeople\u2019s understanding that just opposing every single thing that [Trump] does, from a foreign policy standpoint, just because it was him doing it, is not a sufficient approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-day confab was primarily focused on doling out tough-love guidance to allies, consultants and early-state strategists, some of whom are aligned with centrist potential 2028 presidential candidates, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.<\/p>\n

With an eye toward 2028, Third Way\u2019s senior vice president Lanae Erickson presented polling data<\/a>on Democratic primary voters. She said three-quarters prefer a candidate who compromises to achieve their goals and two-thirds worry that nominating someone too far left risks losing the general election.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to be the \u2018abolish police,\u2019 \u2018abolish ICE,\u2019 virtue-signaling party, I don\u2019t care who they nominate, we\u2019re going to lose,\u201d said Jim Messina, who served as Barack Obama\u2019s campaign manager. \u201cWe continue to want to be ideological purists at exactly the wrong time to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHARLESTON, S.C. \u2014 Hours after the American military strikes in Iran started, Third Way co-founder Matt Bennett scrambled to write up a presentation on how centrist Democrats should talk about foreign policy in 2028. On stage during Third Way\u2019s \u201cWinning the Middle\u201d conference, Bennett described focus groups before the war in Iran started, where \u201cthe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}