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COLUMBIA, S.C. — Carly Fiorina spends a lot of her time as a Republican presidential candidate attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate, and has earned considerable news coverage for it. On Wednesday, with Mrs. Clinton set to give a speech at a South Carolina hotel, Ms. Fiorina arranged a news conference outside – for little reason, it seemed, other than to taunt her.

Unlike Mrs. Clinton, she pointedly assured reporters, she would take their questions.

And she did – saying, for example, that she did not regret appearing at one Clinton Global Initiative event herself, despite the controversy recently over foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. “Last year we didn’t know all the things that we now know about the Clinton Foundation,” Ms. Fiorina said.

Would she go back? “Well, that was a hypothetical,” she said. “My guess is, they won’t invite me again.”

But Ms. Fiorina quickly grew discomfited when the questions seemed to treat her more as a heckler pulling a stunt than as a formidable candidate making an otherwise significant campaign stop.

One reporter asked if Ms. Fiorina was being used by the men in the Republican field to harass Mrs. Clinton.

Ms. Fiorina insisted she had planned her trip here “many, many weeks ago, so perhaps she’s following me.” She said she had lots more to offer than merely Clinton-bashing: “Anyone who has sat through these avails over many months knows that I will take any question on any subject, and the vast majority of my speeches in front of anyone are about a host of issues.”

About 20 reporters and photographers circled her near a side entrance to the Marriott, leaning in to hear Ms. Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive who spoke softly, at times barely audible.

One reporter asked if she was here because of Mrs. Clinton.

“I planned to be here weeks and weeks ago!” she said. “I have a luncheon to go to, with the G.O.P. here.”

At this hotel?

“This trip has been on my itinerary for a very long time,” she said.

Ms. Fiorina was only too glad to discuss immigration reform — she criticized President Obama and Mrs. Clinton — and equal pay. “A man can sit in a government office and watch pornography all day long,” and still earn more than a hard-working woman in the same job, she said. Women, she said, were “held to different standards.”

She did not indicate whether she felt that was true of Mrs. Clinton as well. But she stressed that Mrs. Clinton needed to be held accountable.

“I hope you will continue to be as aggressive with Mrs. Clinton, wherever she is,” Ms. Fiorina said.

“All right, thank you, everyone,” an aide interjected after about 11 minutes.

A reporter tried to pose another question. But Ms. Fiorina demurred.

“Thanks, you guys — I have a lunch to go to,” she said, carefully stepping across the cables stretching to the satellite trucks that had arrived to record Mrs. Clinton’s appearance inside the hotel.