Persuadable Voters

You gotta love a person with the name Sunshine :)
I felt that our speaker presented interesting perspectives regarding polling surveys and predicted outcomes for this election. Although, for my own personal reasons, I hope support for Obama is genuine, there's no way to really know for sure until the 4th... But it comes down to this - are people likely to respond to a survey, claiming that they are voting for a black man just to "prove" or demonstrate that they are not racist? And are the people who are voting for McCain taking the time to complete the survey, or do we have a majority of Obama supporters, who are more excited and active during this election, that are taking the survies and slanting the data? It's definitely a different way to look at things.
And can I just say that I really do not like the electorial college?!! I am openly admitting right here and now that I do not get how it works exactly (feel free to comment if you think you can help me out here) so it may just be a lack of understanding, but from what I do understand about it - I don't like it. How is it that the popular vote does not elect our president? For the people, by the electorial college? I don't like the sound of that. And is it true that if the popular vote counted for more than the electorial college, Gore would have won years ago? Again, someone help me out here...
As far as predicting the outcome of this election - we're not going to know until the 4th, and I'm trying not to get my hopes up because there's no way to tell for sure how it's going to turn out. Despite everything we're being told, despite "expert predictions" - it's up in the air, if you ask me.