Historian Arnold Toynbee theorized that civilizations gained the brio to flourish in the face of a "challenge-and-response" scenario: a military defeat, an inhospitable climate, or some other hindrance, was requisite to call forth the creative energy that would build an empire.

There's a lesson there for progressive advocates rolling out of bed this morning with an extra spring in their step ... and for conservatives who'd just as soon pull up the sheets.

Progressive online organizing has blossomed during the opposition's governance, and it's survived the post-2006 Democratic majority in Congress -- for understandable reasons. But one onion-layer behind the netroots in the Internet organizing history are Matt Drudge and Free Republic: online spaces that grew huge in the late 90's against the challenge-and-response scenario posed by the Clinton administration. Nowhere is it written that liberals must dominate cyberspace.

Come January 20, 2009, the Democratic Party will control the White House and Congress. And that means that progressive organizers would do well to keep an eye on the the responses their conservative opponents begin to make.

Obama partisans can be forgiven their gloating this morning, and it's hard not to be amused by the mouth-breathing stuff about a centrist Democrat going all Five-Year Plan.

But victory is fleeting -- and it's a poisoned chalice, inasmuch as progressives face a tougher calculation critiquing Democrats.

Conservatives will have the luxury of opposition: no need to own and finesse the inevitable missteps any governing party has, just full-bore opposition. It's just the sort of thing to fire up, say, a small-dollar fundraising juggernaut, and more besides. In fact, the situation is strikingly analogous to that of Democrats four years ago.

So brace for conservative online organizing to ramp up, and get creative. And don't be afraid to crib some notes when it works.

Right-wingers will be energized by the challenge, and the intelligent ones are already doing their own institutional rebuilding. Sure, liberals can laugh at a misstep here and there ... but better be sure it's not actually a stroke of genius.