The simple answer to “Are you prepared to accept the results whether you win or lose? is, of course, “Of course.” From there a candidate might add qualifications excluding situations with genuine evidence of fraud or other legitimate uncertainties, like the fight that culminated in Bush v. Gore in 2000. It’s one thing to fight over the legitimate mechanisms, and quite another to declare one will wait to see the results before deciding whether to accept them or not, which is as problematic as most commentators are pointing out.

Of course the problem isn’t nearly as dangerous for the country as it would be if the candidate making such a claim were an incumbent, or candidate of the party in office, when such an attitude becomes really dangerous, a direct threat to the principles of democracy, for then it really raises doubts about the peaceful transfer of power….

[Rest of this post, dated Oct. 20, 2016, in the Post Date Pasta file.]