I wouldn't be anywhere near as confident that Hillary would be the natural beneficiary of Barrack's voters HS. There's a host of reasons why, but at the heart of it, it requires an understanding of the moisaic that is her constituency, which is an incredibly difficult one to get a handle on, and often goes against the grain of expectation.
Far from taking on black issues, she hasn't sought to immerse herself in them at all really. Certainly, not as much as she could have done. Her links with big business interests are much more prevalent. Indeed, some of her positions on immigration would make Bill O'Reilly blanche
From a social perspective, her background started off in childcare issues and education. Her legal career was mixed in terms of who she represented, (but that isn't unusal) she certainly didn't take on the equal opportunities and the under dog causes that one would expect her to have. Indded, she was more interested in stitching up business deals.
When her husband was elected Pres, she branched out into an ill-fated Health Reform programme that she totally mishandled, and couldn't even garner enough support to bring the bill forward, (even with Democrat majorities in both Houses). It was notable that when she ran for Senate, she spent most of her time 'upstate' (which was shrewd imo) but it could easily have been interpreted as taking the poorer New York boroughs for granted.
Since becoming a Senator she seems to have involved herself in poverty, but increasingly so has gone into fiscal policy, immigration control, and national security.
Culturally there's another dynamic potentially at play, and that's the division of the black vote according to gender where Hillary's concerned. I take it you're not familiar with gangster rap. Leaving aside the role of the black urban youth being encouraged to "smack up their bitch" etc (it's a largely disenfranchised, apathetic, non-voting block anyway) even so the black male isn't easily given over to culturally regarding a woman equally, yet alone voting for one as President. It has always been my impression however, that black women by contrast, seem to be a lot more positively disposed towards her, although this has largely been as a result of her wider childcare, education and anti-poverty stances. Even so, I drew the conclusion from my own New York experiences that she was well ahead of either Giuliani or latterly Rick Lazio within this group (but then she'd have to be in all honesty)
I'm not sure that any of the Democrat front runners, are natural inheritors of Obama's constituency. Edwards might be a little bit nearer given that he's appreciably more liberal on immigration than her, and has actively been courting the NAACP in recent years. His own legal career is punctuated with contradictions, but has at least taken on under dog causes in medical compensation cases.
