Political Junkie: If your candidate loses, will you give the winner a chance?

In one of the most contentious presidential elections of all time, voters need to ask themselves if they'll support the candidate they didn't vote for, or at least give them the benefit of the doubt.

That's the question host Kerri Miller posed to the audience, and below are some of the thoughtful answers she received.

Our regular contributor and Political Junkie Ken Rudin was also on the program, along with Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

To hear what our guests had to say about this weekend's political news, use the audio player above.

Callers on political gridlock

Joe, Minneapolis

I'm going to vote for Hillary Clinton, but no matter who wins, there will a stalemate. Nothing will get done in the next four years it's been so polarizing. And I have to put the blame on the Republicans, because going back in 1981 with Reagan's first inaugural speech that government is not the solution it's the problem.

For the last 35 years all the Republicans have been doing is bashing government. And this is what you get. You get a problematic candidate who is vile and debasing the whole system.

Kenny, St. Paul

With a lot of things that have been raised with the voter registration laws and voter ID laws, we've seen a lot of the evidence there aren't problems with illegtimamcies in our elections. If Donald Trump gets elected it will be a legitimate election and he won. The thing I'm more concerned about is, eight years ago we had Republicans who basically pledged, "if this person get elected we wouldn't support anything they do, we're going to block everything they do." Four years later they made a similar pledge.

My bigger question is for the people who might not win, if you don't win, how are you going to make it so that your party doesn't lead to four years of inaction? What are you going to do to work with the other people and do things and accomplish things.

This is the system we have to work with

Rick

If my candidate doesn't win, I'll acknowledge the other candidate has won and I'll have to trust that the balances in place will prevent any overt silliness and nastiness and I'll be resigned to the fact that nothing will get done. I'm not so unhinged as to think if my party loses it's the end of the world.

Joe

Yes, because otherwise we are telling our fellow Americans that we have no faith in them and their ability to chose the president.

It's time for a change in the system, and a change in ourselves

Steve

We must get back to mutual respect and find the middle ground on topics we can agree on. I'm a registered Republican and will not vote Trump. His ego is too big for the White House. I'm ready for a third party and I don't have time to write more letters to my representatives and I'm very tired of all the stalemate.

Dana

After last night, I feel like I have an emotional hangover. I interact with people who support Trump, I've got to resolve to be a better person, that when you apologize, that means that you understand what you did and you will change. Trump is giving us an example of someone who does not understand what he did and his apology is shallow. If that is our president, I've got to resolve to be a better person because that is the only thing I'll have control over.

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