Obama's handlers are not stupid-- if they think they can ditch the blue collar white vote, they have a reason for believing that, and a demographic to replace them with.
Here in NJ ALL of those groups are hurting; many of the public employees have been laid off (and their job skills often don’t translate well into the private sector), and many of the middle class jobs have left (probably permanently). Don’t underestimate the forces at work where Republicans won statewide offices one year after their states had voted for Obama in ‘08 (NJ, MA, VA) - the people are desperate. They were desperate enough to vote for Obama, and quickly realized (and now can see it more than ever) that he had no solutions at all.
He will have to battle in every single state; the mood of the country that elected him now works against him. Any Republican challenger should be a shoe-in (and the media is reacting as though they already know this).