The standard conservative (and sometimes liberal) meme in the wake of Mitt Romney's spree of unprecedented and unbelievable gaffes is that he is blowing an election that was his to win. The accompanying recital cites history (no president has ever been reelected with 8% unemployment) and myth (President Obama's supposed lackluster performance). But in fact the Republican nominee has always had a hill to climb, however invisible that might be to the punditocracy.
First, the president heads into the fall with a significant structural edge. Of the six states with 20+ electoral votes, President Obama can count on winning four (Calfornia, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania), whereas Romney can depend only on Texas, with Florida up for grabs. Thus, the president starts off with an electoral college lead of 125-38 with an at least even (and now better than even) chance of adding 29 more votes.
Second, who ever went broke betting on Barack Obama to win an election? In 2008, Obama came out of nowhere to best two of the most visible politicians in the country. Romney led a notably weak field, a Republican problem from the get-go. It's worth noting that since 1960, the dawn of the television-based election, the candidate who has run the best campaign has won (2000 excepted).
Finally, while no one is happy about the economy and the president's poll numbers on his handling of the economy have never been strong, he remains personally popular and -- crucially -- polls consistently show that the public largely blames the current state of affairs on the Bush administration. Moreover, the Republicans have never had anything to offer but more of what people already believe are the cause of our problems. Obama had to make the election about a choice between philosophies, something he was well-positioned to do.
Of course, Obama couldn't guess that he would be the big winner of the Republican primaries or that he would be blessed with an adversary would say that corporations were people and apparently believes that said corporations are more deserving than half of the American people. Obama couldn't in his wildest fantasies have hoped that Romney would screw up a visit to the Olympics or issue a churlish statement in response to the tragedy in Benghazi.
The Romney campaign has all the appearances of a baseball team that fades badly in the stretch run. Much of that, Romney can blame on himself. But the president and his team have always been in position to finish strong.