( CNN ) -- As Republicans wrestle with how to oppose President Barack Obama , what to do about Obamacare and how to compare the value of fights based on principle versus fights based on clever calculation , there may be some lessons from one of the darkest periods of Republican history . Watergate was a slow-motion disaster for the Republican Party . Richard Nixon , who had just won one of the largest majorities in American history in 1972 , was slowly being exposed and driven from power . At the same time , it was discovered that Vice President Spiro Agnew was illegally taking bribes . He was forced to resign . That resignation led to the first vice presidential appointment , that of the House Republican leader , Rep. Gerald Ford . Then Nixon resigned , leading to the second vice presidential appointment , former Gov . Nelson Rockefeller of New York . That appealed to liberals but enraged conservatives . President Ford then pardoned Nixon , leading to a further firestorm of outrage . The Republicans were badly defeated in the 1974 congressional elections . The election of President Jimmy Carter finished the defeat of the Republican Party . Republicans were shattered by their sudden collapse after the enormous 1972 victory . Republican leaders in Congress were shaken by the defeat of so many of their friends , many after two decades or more in office . In many ways , America was a one-party system by January 1977 , and the Democrats seemed totally dominant . Opinion : The Republican implosion . The Democratic Party housed liberals and conservatives , agrarians and urban intellectuals , men , women , young , old , blacks , whites , all creeds , dominated all regions and ruled all debate in America . The Republican Party housed a small group of exhausted defeatists . By January 1977 , only 11 % of citizens younger than 30 identified with the Republican Party . The party had been on fumes for years , ever since the Great Depression and only challenged the Democrats for national authority when they screwed up , as in 1946 and 1968 , or when Republicans nominated an overwhelmingly popular figure , such as Dwight D. Eisenhower , in 1952 . And with the election of Carter , a smart , moderate Democrat from the South , the prospect for Democratic rule for another generation seemed bright . The party of Andrew Jackson had smothering control of the House , a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and in the South , there were states such as Mississippi that had almost no elected Republican officeholders . The only state in the country that had GOP control of the legislature and the governor 's mansion was Kansas . The other 49 states had partial or complete Democratic control . The old ways of accommodating the establishment by the GOP of the 1930s , '40s , '50s and '60s would no longer work . Something else had to be tried . To conservatives such as Reagan , accommodation was tantamount to capitulation and they asked themselves , `` If we surrender on everything , what is the purpose of having a Republican Party ? '' For several years , the U.S. government had been making plans to yield control and ownership of the Panama Canal to Omar Torrijos , the dictator of the Panama . All of the establishment was going along with it , from Lyndon Johnson to Nixon to Ford , Henry Kissinger and by 1977 , Carter . Nearly all the editorialists supported the `` giveaway '' of the canal at the height of the Cold War . Control of the canal was vital to American military interests , especially with Soviet control of Cuba and designs on Central America . Opinion : Hilary Clinton , RNC and freedom of the press . Into this void stepped former California Gov . Ronald Reagan , who launched a national campaign to oppose the giveaway . He gave speeches , stumped across the country and testified before Congress . A `` New Right '' rose up and organized a `` Panama Canal Truth Squad '' led by Richard Viguerie , Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Weyrich , among others . Petitions were circulated at the grassroots and delivered to Capitol Hill . In speech after speech , Reagan thundered , `` We built it ! We paid for it ! It is ours ! And we are going to keep it ! '' Polling had shown American support for the two Panama Canal treaties , but by 1978 , the American people had switched and agreed with Reagan and the conservatives -- and not Carter . In the end , the treaties to declare the canal a neutral zone and eventually surrender it to Panama passed by the barest of margins , only by one and two votes more than the two thirds required in the Senate . The war had been lost but the battle was worth it . Principles had been established and arguments made . It led to Republican victories in the off year elections of 1978 and launched Reagan 's third campaign for the White House . Years later , Carter himself acknowledged the potency of the canal issue in the election of 1980 , which not only saw the rise of Reagan , but the loss of scores more Democrats who had voted for the treaties . Reagan used to joke that without his principles , without his conservatism , he would have been just another former actor . He knew standing one 's ground when one was right was enlightening and empowering . It is a lesson from history that applies today . Fighting for principles and losing is always better than surrendering and in so doing , abandoning one 's reason for being . Reagan had called in February 1975 for `` bold colors , no pale pastels . '' Opposing the Panama Canal Treaties turned out to be bold colors indeed . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors .
Craig Shirley , Newt Gingrich : Republicans were devastated by Watergate scandal . They say the party lost most of its clout , had to rebuild from the ground up . Republicans rallied around effort to stop the handover of the Panama Canal . Authors : They lost the canal battle but built a party that competed -- and won .