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This election’s only vice presidential debate between Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Joe Biden is being highly anticipated by political pundits and voters. The debate starts tonight at 6 pm Pacific at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky and will be moderated by Martha Raddatz of ABC news.

Within the 90 minute format, covering both domestic and foreign policy, the Romney campaign is hoping to continue its momentum from the first Presidential debate, while the Obama campaign hopes to refocus its floundering campaign.

Vice presidential debates have historically entertained rather than changed the outcome of elections. However, this year may be notable beyond Biden’s flubs and Ryan’s fitness regime. It is expected that Biden may try to counter Obama’s underwhelming performance last week by aggressively challenging Ryan’s budget policies and lack of foreign policy experience. Ryan is expected to try to say as little as possible about specifics, but appear assertive and presidential when facing Biden’s challenges.

Many of Obama’s supporters last week were dismayed at his reluctance to raise crucial weak points in Romney’s platform, namely on women’s rights and economic issues. On Tuesday, Romney told a newspaper that as president that “there’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.” On the surface, this statement clashes with Paul Ryan’s conservative anti-choice stance.

Democrats hope this difference and the Romney campaign’s silence on the Ryan Budget, a radical program that proposes to cut the federal budget by $6 trillion over ten years, will highlight the so-called “flip-flop/etch-a-sketch” factor which has dogged the Romney throughout the campaign.

Polls taken after the first presidential debate show that President Obama has lost some of his lead in swing states, while Romney has pulled ahead. Nate Silver reports on his widely touted New York Times Blog that Romney now has a 28.8 % chance of winning the presidency, and that race between the two is the closest it has been since June.

GUEST: Joshua Holland, Senior Writer and Editor at Alternet.org and author of the 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy

Click here to read Holland’s latest Alternet article about the VP debate.