Remember how the McCains and Palin jumped into action when Gustav threatened New Orleans during the Republican convention? They visited the region threatened so they could “help out” by getting in the way, showing how much they cared. Obama wisely stayed out of the way, offering support from afar, curtailing his campaign events and raising money for storm victims, the most constructive form of help a politician can muster.

Now, Ike has hit Texas. Obama is reacting the same way–he has canceled his appearance on SNL (hopefully he’ll come back for it next week), and again raises money for storm victims (his site’s main page is wholly given over to raising funds for storm relief) and monitor things from afar, staying in touch with officials in Texas by phone and offering whatever help and support he can.

McCain? Well, his main page now has a panel for storm relief among his other stuff, but that’s about it. No canceling of stump events that I can see–Palin is still going to Nevada to stump, and they will still have the NASCAR event this weekend. But what is most telling is the fact that neither McCain, his wife, nor Palin are rushing out to the site of the storm damage to “help out” again. Frankly, I think that such “help” is a bad idea and the people in the storm path are better off without it–but McCain obviously doesn’t think so, and certainly never noted such himself.

If you recall, McCain once deeply cut into Obama for canceling a visit to the troops because reporters with cameras would not be there, a charge which was patently and demonstrably false. But now that the media glare from the convention is no longer around, McCain is not visiting the storm-ravaged areas like he did when the cameras were greater in number.

Obviously, McCain cares far more about the media spotlight than he does about the people of his country, which, from what I have heard, is supposed to come “first.” Unless that’s just some throwaway line in a sales pitch.