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.

Newsflash - Montana is a politically dynamic state. Obama wins primary.

Oh Montucky... land of Red and Blue, and where every vote counts. Obama carried the state in Tuesday's primary election with 102,544 votes to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s 75,053.

What's exciting is the 95% voter increase from Democrats compared to the 2004 Montana presidential primary.... basically twice as many D's voted! Check out NewWest's breakdown of the MT primary.

Let's review the primary results:

2008 Total Votes Cast = 277,138

Someone could have dined well on my dime by wagering me on the proposition that this now-renowned "ObamaGirl" video would be -- well -- renowned.

I guess I'm a fogey. When I saw this thing Thursday morning it registered a big "meh." Three days later, the needle hasn't budged.

Actually, the citizen media that caught my eye that day came via the UK-based nfp2.0 blog -- a spot of guerrilla marketing.

[I know you want the SILF t-shirt]

This charismatic piece hit me as an interesting juxtaposition to last summer's viral-marketing Hindenberg, the Agency.com Subway pitch which went viral for its cover-your-eyes awfulness.

(All the original's video links seem to be pulled, but the below is the piece plus smartass subtitling.)

Despite my mixed reactions, and despite the contrasting purposes at play, there's a kinship between the first two of these videos that's wanting in the third. What is this quicksilver "genuineness" that decodes a piece's meaning and foretells its prospects as citizen media?