1) Snatching defeat from jaws of victory- handled correctly, the Romney campaign may have been able to get a little bit of mileage out of this incident. That is not to suggest the Obama administration did anything wrong, but anytime something bad happens, at least some people are generally willing to assume something was handled incorrectly, and when it comes to foreign affairs and overseas interests the buck stops with the president.
However, Romney managed to turn the entire story into how badly he mangled his response to the real story, an almost unbelievable feat of sheer incompetence. Now, any further criticism Romney makes of any further overseas incidents prior to the election will almost certainly be automatically assumed to be simply another crass political attack. Romney has lost all credibility in the subject area.
2) Focus on the shiny object- Just a day or two ago, the Romney campaign was describing any discussion of foreign policy as a "shiny object" distracting from their focus on the economy. As the days tick down to the election, the Romney campaign seems less and less able to create any narrative regarding the economy. This latest gaffe of monster proportions virtually guarantees that the Romney campaign will once again be forced to spend precious days dealing with the fallout of their own stupidity versus focusing on their economic narrative.
3) He is the dick we thought he was- The whole incident substantially reinforces the idea that has slowly been cementing the the subconscious of the American electorate that Mitt is, simply put, a dick. "I like to fire people," "Your cookies suck," "Corporations are people, my friends," and on and on. We have always known Romney was incredibly socially awkward, but one event after another has created an impression that he is really just an asshole. This is reflected in favorability ratings that suggest Romney is the least liked presidential candidate in recent times. Romney's asshole-ishness is compounded by the fact that Obama is viewed much more favorably outside the of the hardcore segment of the right wing. If you aren't sure who to vote for, but one guy seems pretty nice, and the other guy seems like a total douche, what are you going to do? Romney greatly increased the asshole narrative with hisinsanity today, and doubled down on it with his bizarre press conference this morning.
4) Not ready for prime time- unfortunately for Romney, given his utterly inept overseas trip during the Olympics as well as other missteps, a narrative was already building that Romney was simply not ready for prime time. This disaster again reinforces the narrative of incompetence greatly, and today even Republicans have been questioning whether Romney is ready for prime time when it comes to handling the complexities of foreign relations and the presidency in general. This huge misstep would have arguably been far less damaging if Romney had not already stubbed his toes so badly in previous efforts.
5)In politics, things that are going badly tend to get worse- The time of this for Romney could not have been worse. As we all know, Romney was listing badly coming out of the political conventions, which were widely viewed as a major victory for the Democrats. Obama was already surging in the polls, and over the last few days there were more and more signs Republicans were starting to panic, or even worse for Romney, abandon ship. Romney's galactic stupidity today will likely hasten the panic and questioning by Republicans, who appear to be (with only a few exceptions) extremely reticent to get Romney's back on this one.
All in all, this appears to be a perfect storm for an already floundering Romney campaign, a political entity that was never loved by Republicans but rather simply tolerated as a necessary evil to beat Obama.