Is America ready for the first black Republican president? That’s a question being asked following the surge in popularity of GOP candidate Herman Cain. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has Cain beating Mitt Romney with 27 percent to Romney’s 21 in the Republican primary. Cain refuses to believe he is the latest GOP “flavor of the week” and has not shied away from talking about race during the campaign. Farai Chideya is a journalist and blogger at Farai.com and Ron Christie is a Republican strategist and former special assistant to President George W. Bush.