Stuart Rothenberg writes that some Republicans are taking a more balanced, sober view of their chances this fall:

In fact, GOP political consultants and strategists aren’t popping champagne corks yet. Instead, they worry about the euphoria on the right and believe that the party has a long way to go before it can nail down a big win in the midterm elections.

Some Republican operatives are openly concerned about the party’s tactical disadvantages, most notably its financial position. Others fear that circumstances could change, robbing the GOP of its strategic advantage.

This is an appropriately cautious view to take. Consider what we have been seeing in just the last week. One of the few House Republicans with any coherent policy views, Paul Ryan, made an impressive budget proposal that his own leadership cannot run away from fast enough. In his first Q&A, Scott Brown simply ignored questions that pointed out the contradiction of supporting across-the-board tax cuts and demanding debt reduction, and it is this position of no taxes/no debt/no cuts that Republican leaders have been adopting. Shelby’s blanket hold may be something that only insiders and activists notice, but it contributes to the overall picture that the minority party is unreasonable, petty and not fit to govern. This is not a party on the verge of a dramatic return to power.

This is the problem the Tories have run into in every general election since 1997. The public may be furious with Labour, but the Tories have not yet capitalized on that discontent when control of the national government is at stake. As horrible as the governing party has been, the Tories kept failing to regain the public’s trust, and they could not demonstrate they were capable of competence in government. Only now do they seem to have a real chance, 13 years later amid a nearly complete meltdown by Labour, and even now victory is not guaranteed. Should the Tories fall short yet again, the recriminations and score-settling will consume the party for years. This is something Republicans should keep in mind.

The danger of overconfidence regarding the midterm results is not just that it can make the GOP complacent, arrogant and deaf to the real concerns of voters. It creates unduly high expectations that will make even an average or decent election result seem more like a defeat. The more the GOP hypes its chances of retaking one or both houses this year, the more devastating the failure to do so will be. After GOP-friendly analysts and pundits have been telling the tale of 1974 or 1994-style losses for the presidential party all year, modest gains will make it feel as if the election is a third straight repudiation of Republicans, because their leaders will have made the election a referendum on their readiness to be in the majority rather than a referendum on the administration.

The psychology of this is simple but very important. As in anything else, if performance exceeds expectations the reputation of the company, party or individual improves much more than if the performance falls short. If Republicans succumb to the temptation to believe that they are going to do something that is virtually unprecedented in electoral politics, and if they begin telling themselves and everyone else that they believe this, it will do them no good after the midterms for them to say that they had set their sights too high. Declaring that they can win 40 House seats, as several members of the leadership seem to think they can, they had better win at least 30 or be considered complete failures. If they were wiser and set the bar much lower at 15 or 20 seats, 25 pick-ups would look much more impressive.

Like the “center-right nation” story that many Republicans keep telling themselves, the belief that Scott Brown’s win heralds a massive anti-Democratic wave gives the GOP the false assurance that all they need to do is show up and reap the rewards. This means that they will continue to neglect the preparation needed to win back many of the seats they are targeting, and this complacency will compound the financial disadvantages they already have.