GREENVILLE, S.C. — Senator Clinton, defending her husband’s increasingly vocal role in her presidential effort, sidestepped questions about whether President Clinton’s suggestion that Senator Obama had put a “hit job” on him was language befitting a former president.

“We’re in a very heated campaign, and people are coming out and saying all kinds of things,” Mrs. Clinton said in an interview yesterday. “I’m out there every day making a positive case for my candidacy. I have a lot of wonderful people, including my husband, who are out there making the case for me.”

The former first lady spoke before a speech here where she outlined ways to address American economic challenges.

Addressing an audience at Furman University, Mrs. Clinton chided President Bush for taking a hands-off approach to American economic woes. Without naming him, she suggested Mr. Obama — who has said he wouldn’t be “an operating officer” as president — might follow Mr. Bush’s path.

“We need a president who will run the government and manage the economy,” she said. “The American people don’t need a president to talk about our problems, but to solve them.”

With two days left before the South Carolina primary, the ongoing war of words between Mr. Clinton and the Obama campaign continued to be a focus here.

At a stop near Columbia today, a woman urged the former president to “stop taking the bait from Obama” and stick to the issues.

Mr. Clinton called it “pretty good advice.”

“When I was running, I didn’t give a rip what anybody said about me,” Mr. Clinton told a crowd of about 200 people. “It’s weird, you know, but if you love somebody and you think that they’d be good, it’s harder.”

The former president has been campaigning actively for his wife here while she has focused attention on states holding contests February 5.

Mr. Clinton has openly predicted that Mr. Obama will win the South Carolina contest because of his popularity among black voters, even as he has lambasted the news media for its interest in the contest’s racial and gender dynamic.

Mr. Obama is trying to become the nation’s first black president, while Mrs. Clinton hopes to be the first woman to hold the job.

The former president yesterday reacted angrily upon being told that a former South Carolina Democratic chairman and Obama supporter, Dick Harpootlian, had called the Clinton campaign “reprehensible” and suggested it had borrowed tactics from the late South Carolina Republican strategist who famously practiced negative campaigning, Lee Atwater.

In response, Mr. Clinton noted that there had been no outcry from reporters when Mr. Obama put out a “hit job” on him.

He didn’t elaborate on what he meant, and Mrs. Clinton refused to speculate in the interview.

“He was thinking about something. You’ll have to ask him what he means,” she said, while calling the comparison to Mr. Atwater “outrageous.”

“Talking about people’s records? Talking about what they do in the campaign? That’s fair game. That’s what we do in America,” she said. “The economy, to get credit flowing again, and to raise investor confidence. It would have been difficult to predict how dependent the global economy would be on the American consumer.”