It’s starting to feel like the presidential election has come down to this: Which candidate is riskier?

The McCain campaign calls Barack Obama “too risky for America,” and that phrase is being echoed by independent groups like the National Republican Trust.

But the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees calls John McCain “risky on Social Security.”

And here comes the AFL-CIO with this pronouncement: “John McCain’s Plan Puts Retirees at Risk.” That’s from a mailer sent to 500,000 retirees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Florida. It labels McCain as a “disaster” for retirees; not too long ago, another AFL-CIO mailer dubbed him a “disaster” for the middle class.

Click on the image to view the latest mailing:

aflcio-risk.gif

The labor federation’s ranks are also continuing phone calls and personal visits to undecided voters. They’re clearly not taking any risks.

This originally appeared on The Secret Money Project Blog, a joint project of CIR and National Public Radio tracking the hidden cash in the 2008 election.

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Will Evans is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal, covering labor and tech. His reporting has prompted government investigations, legislation, reforms and prosecutions. A series on working conditions at Amazon warehouses was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and won a Gerald Loeb Award. His work has also won multiple Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards, including for a series on safety problems at Tesla. Other investigations have exposed secret spying at Uber, illegal discrimination in the temp industry and rampant fraud in California's drug rehab system for the poor. Prior to joining The Center for Investigative Reporting in 2005, Evans was a reporter at The Sacramento Bee. He is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.