For Mrs. Edwards, who battled breast cancer, health became an issue at the start of the race, when she and her husband announced that they would continue his campaign even though her cancer had spread to the bones. It has not spread further, she said. Other than side effects of medications, she said, she is doing “fine” and has lots of energy.  In reasserting her interest in public policy, Mrs. Edwards said her husband, a former senator from North Carolina, had decided to attend to her needs first because their lives had revolved around his past campaigns. While he has not outlined a path for his future, she predicted he would focus on antipoverty efforts.  In the long run, she said, she believed that the ways Mr. Edwards had pushed his fellow candidates on issues like poverty and guided the party would have effects far beyond this campaign.  With Mr. Edwards keeping a low profile since leaving the race, Senators Clinton and Barack Obama stepped off the campaign trail to seek his support.  “We did talk about health care with Senator Obama and Senator Clinton,” Mrs. Edwards said. “And where there are differences, we talked about those differences and why I believed John’s was right.”  She dismissed reports that the couple were “turned off” by those discussions with Mr. Obama. His health plan would initially mandate coverage just for children. Mrs. Clinton’s would require coverage for all Americans.  Mrs. Edwards added that the couple’s expressed concerns were “apparently not sufficiently persuasive enough that anybody has changed their position.”  With the primary in the Edwardses’ home state, North Carolina, less a month away, Mrs. Edwards called endorsements overrated, even her husband’s. She asked, after Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico had endorsed Mr. Obama, “Was there really a change anywhere?”  She said she and her husband had not been asked to appear with either Democrat leading up the North Carolina vote on May 6. But she said they had decided to go to Walt Disney World the week before.  She said she saw no problem with the fight over the Democratic nomination going to the national convention. And she said she agreed with Mrs. Clinton that superdelegates should weigh in as appropriate and did not necessarily need to vote the way their state or caucus had voted.  Mrs. Edwards faulted the news media for what she said was focusing on a minute part of the campaign, the perceived “sniping” between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.  “As long as they continue to have a dialogue about the differences between them,” she said, “I think it’s good for the party.”  Asked whether Mr. McCain might benefit because he has more time to prepare for Election Day in November, Mrs. Edwards said healthy competition made for a better contender.  “He did better when he had opposition than without, I think,” Mrs. Edwards said. “Everybody is better with a foil.”  “It might’ve been better for John Kerry to continue to have to make his case in the interim between March and July, maybe to be subject to criticism,” she said of her husband’s running mate in the 2004 presidential campaign.  For the two Democratic rivals now, she said, “I think their profiles have been enhanced, as opposed to diminished.”  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Mrs. Edwards Won’t Endorse, and Moves to Her Issues. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Elizabeth Edwards said that by remaining nonaligned she and her husband, John Edwards, could be more effective in promoting the causes they feel are important.