Did Hillary avoid mentioning Bill in last night's debate?

She sure tried! For example, in talking about sending Chelsea to private school, she said: "I was advised... if she were to go to a public school, the press would never leave her alone... So I had to make a very difficult decision." "I"? No "we"?

She would have succeeded in her attempt at a total eclipse of the man had it not been for this question:

[M]y question is for Hillary Clinton.

With Bush, Clinton, and Bush again serving as the last three presidents, how would electing you, a Clinton, constitute the type of change in Washington so many people in the heartland are yearning for, and what your campaign has been talking about?

I was also wondering if any of the other candidates had a problem with the same two families being in charge of the executive branch of government for 28 consecutive years, if Hillary Clinton were to potentially be elected and then re-elected.

(Wow! 28 years!)

Clinton's answer minimized the "husband" -- she never says his name -- as much as possible:

Well, I think it is a problem that Bush was elected in 2000. I actually thought somebody else was elected in that election, but...

Obviously, I am running on my own merits, but I am very proud of my husband's record as president of the United States. You know what is great about this is look at this stage and look at the diversity you have here in the Democratic Party. Any one of us would be a better president than our current president or the future Republican nominee. So I'm looking forward to making my case to the people of this country and I hope they will judge me on my merits.

It wasn't so long ago that she was bringing the man forward to reflect some glow onto her. Why the repositioning? Or is it just that he's mainly to be used as a visual prop in her campaign, so that when he can't appear in person -- as in a debate -- you don't talk about him at all? She needs to stand on her own, as she says in that statement above, so she doesn't want to refer to him. But when he can show up in person and talk about her (and not about himself), that works just fine.