This is from Clinton's bio on the senate.gov site:

"Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to the United States Senate by the people of New York on November 7, 2000, after years of public service on behalf of children and families."

Since when does "years of public service on behalf of children and families" qualify as more "experience" than someone who also spent his life in public service?

Obama spent 8 years in the Illinois State Senate and 3 years as a US Senator. That's 11 years in elected public office compared to Clinton's 7 and change.

Why does Hillary get to count being married to a president as "experience?" Should I say in a job interview that I have "experience" to be a Sr. VP of Business Development at a Fortune 500 corporation because my husband has this title and I talk to him about his work?

Who knows if it's relevant to the US presidency or not, but Obama was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. This is is something he actually accomplished. He didn't marry someone to get that job.

And by the way, he didn't move to Illinois to run for the US Senate. He lived there. And why did the Clintons move to New York...?

I won't vote for her no matter what. I will hold my nose and vote for the Republican candidate. She's a disingenuous opportunist, and I wouldn't trust her with our nation's security or its future.

She will be just as secretive and conniving as W if she's elected. I guarantee it.

Did anyone else besides me predict that the profit-less dot.coms were headed for disaster in the 90s? Or that real estate prices would fall after soaring to absurd heights? Or that it usually rains after a dry spell? Opening your eyes to reality is a great way to predict the future.

Take a look at what Hillary Clinton is made of, why you think she "stood by her man," and fast forward to the future. What do you see? An honest, straightforward, woman of great integrity? Is that what you see?

I thoroughly enjoy your letters/responses. They are incredibly thoughtful and intelligent. As a writer, I am always wowed when I see good writing, because I know what is behind it.

I have the identical reaction to goeswithness below:

"At first I thought the letter was going to be about being annoyed by the word "mom." I would definitely identify with that. I call my mother Mom, but for some reason I can't figure out it REALLY annoys me to hear "mom" replace "mother" in common speech. It seems like spin. It seems like an attempt to be young and hip. Or maybe it's just that it's overly informal, too personal a term to me."

I can't describe how much I too hate the term "mom" replacing mother. Yes, I also call my mother "mom," but I don't say "my mom."

Speaking of my mother, I never heard her or any of her friends describe themselves as "moms" when I was growing up in the 1960s and '70s. My friends' mothers were teachers, career counselors, social workers, nurses, etc., and we saw them as such.

I think anyone who's my age (late 40s) or older, remembers a world where adults mostly spoke to adults about adult things. They really did not obsess about their children. In some respects, they largely ignored them. You sent the kids to school; checked in to see if homework was being done; let them watch hours of TV; and you sent them outside to play.

Adults had adult parties, and you took the coats quietly upstairs and stayed there. You knew not to come downstairs, because you were just a kid. No one could care less what you had to say. At holidays, the children sat at the "children's table" and didn't bother the grown-ups.

There was no obsession over children, and the worlds of adults and children really didn't mix much.

I can't even picture my mother talking to anyone about being a "mom." My sense was that the adults back then saw parenthood as a given, not something by which they identified themselves.

Even today, I don't see my mother as a "mom." My sense is that women of her generation mostly had a lot of regrets about things they didn't or couldn't do. If anything, they obsessed about the careers and lives they wished they'd had. I can almost guarantee you that when a bunch of women got together, they were talking about that - not about being "moms."

Ololon, you would likely get a very different reaction if you simply said "I stay home with my child" rather than "I'm a mom."

There are two kinds of people you meet in social settings: those who are crashing bores and those who are interesting. Without fail, the crashing bores constantly want to tell you about themselves - and their children - and have little interest in others or the world around them.

Whether or not it's true in your case - "I'm a mom" - indicates that you won't have much to talk about other than yourself. "I stay home with my child" indicates that you're a human being who doesn't happen to have a 9 to 5 job, but is raising her child right now.

If you said: "I'm a mom," I would probably politely exit to the drink table. If you said "I stay home with my child," I would probably ask you a follow-up question about your day, your child, how you knew the host, etc.