Stephanie Adkins has veered from right-wing independent to moderate Republican in past U.S. presidential elections. She plans to vote in November for Republican candidate Mitt Romney even though she is not enamored of him or his competitor for the job, President Barack Obama.

"People aren't wild about Romney, but neither one of them inspire passion in me," she said. "I'm not fired up about either of them."

Her fear that Obama could be re-elected, she said, will be her driving force on November 6 to push the button for Republican challenger Romney, a vote almost certain to be canceled out by Noel Pinnock, a conservative Democrat who plans to support Obama.

Pinnock, 38, a human resources manager for the City of Houston who voted for Obama in the last presidential election nearly four years ago, identifies himself as someone who believes in Democratic Party values and the more conservative agenda of the party's platform.

"I'm not anti-Romney, but I think his approach to politics, as seen during the national convention, sewed it up for me against him," Pinnock said. "I watched the Republicans' and the Democrats' conventions to see where the differences would take the country. Obama has had his share of challenges, but he's done a fairly decent job."

Pinnock said that from his perspective as a human resources administrator who sees the applicants coming out of the nation's schools, he has been most impressed by Obama's stance on widening the path to higher education. He also supports the president's championing increased health coverage for lower income and middle- class families.

"What people are calling Obamacare is providing much-needed health care coverage," Pinnock said. "We've got thirty million people ready to retire in five to eight years whose Social Security should be promoted. Those factors alone are reasons to support Obama."

To Adkins, 52, a loan officer for a commercial financing group, Romney is more likable because he understands business better than Obama. "Both nationally and internationally, I believe Romney has a deeper understanding than Barack Obama about the American capitalist markets and foreign markets."

Obama has shown through his policies, including education, healthcare and changes in taxation, that he advocates redistributing people's money, she said.

"I don't believe in redistribution of wealth," Adkins said. "He has said already that he believes in it and I'm opposed to that because it contradicts the original U.S. Constitution and the democratic principles the Constitution is based on."

Pinnock said he thinks Obama has unfinished business from his current term of office, like helping students graduating from high school and college who are entering the work force.

"He's got a lot of irons in the fire and he's still got a lot of work to do," Pinnock said. "In his position on free trade, he's trying to bring back what we have lost over the past few decades -- increase our gross national product, supporting our auto industry manufacturing plants, getting back to what our country was predicated on by putting our stamp back on our products."

Both Adkins and Pinnock said they are better off today than they were four years ago.

"I think the economy of Texas is better than it was four years ago," Adkins said. "And that's why I'm better off. I did experience some unemployment because financial agencies had to deal with the extra regulatory oversight. Everybody is overworked and frustrated. With more lending requirements and more paperwork, it costs more for the end user for a bucket of bad apples."

Buying the toxic loans of a few people who borrowed more than they could repay caused the banking and housing crisis that the nation is still experiencing, she said.

"Five percent of the people cause 95 percent to pay more for a regular loan and that's not right," Adkins said. "Mitt Romney understands that and he understands the business aspects of international trade and other nations as far as the importance of a working alliance. I don't think Obama understands this at a serious level."

Pinnock also said that while his job has remained steady, he hasn't been unscathed by the recession. He doesn't lay all the problems at Obama's door, however.

"We're paying more for small items at the grocery store," Pinnock said. "You come out of the grocery with just a couple of bags and you've spent over 100 U.S. dollars for them. The middle class has definitely been impacted but we can't place the blame on Obama. It was a tsunami. We saw the wave during the previous administration and we saw the trajectory of the wave. It may have hit under his watch, but he inherited it from his predecessor."

The important thing, Pinnock said, is that the country is coming out of the recession now. "And we're stronger than ever because of it," he said. "That's the silver lining part of all this."

The polarizing differences between the candidates, between Republicans and Democrats, liberals, moderates and conservatives, are going to make for a nail-biting election, Adkins said. "It's an interesting election year because there are so many differences and what we are seeing is that it's going to be really close."

She pinched her forefinger and thumb together. "That close," she said.