"The Democrat Party is just abandoning white working class voters."

"The Democrat Party is punting. The Democrat Party is saying, 'Sayonara, we don't care.' They are going after the welfare state full-fledged. They are going after the entitlement mentality people in this country full-fledged. They're not making any pretenses."

That's Rush Limbaugh, today, interpreting a story in the New York Times by Thomas Edsall called "The Future of the Obama Coalition."

"All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment -- professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists -- and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic."

That's Edsall. Rush says:

I am not surprised that this is their coalition. I'm just stunned that they're so publicly admitting it.... [T]o come out here and have it admitted to in the New York Times is almost a matter of pride and brilliant strategy. What this means is the white working class is the Tea Party. The white working class has abandoned the Democrat Party, is what this means. This is the old Reagan Democrat coalition in part. White working class people had decided that they're voting Republican. That's who voted in the 2010 midterms.