While certainly being caught between a hurricane and a hard place, Senator John McCain seems to be making political expediency of the potential human tragedy of Hurricane Gustav. By severely truncating the Republican National Convention, McCain and company get to dodge a major bullet—appearances by President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, two guys McCain would much prefer not attend the party. He also gets to sidestep an allegedly disgruntled Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, both snubbed in McCain’s sensationalistic nomination of Wonder Woman for vice president. The senator may also seek to maximize his profile by highlighting his leadership skills during the crisis, even though as a senator from Arizona he has no specific tasks to perform and no useful powers to exercise. Senator Barack Obama, on the other hand, brings not only a deeply embedded grass-roots organization into play, but nearly two decades of street-level organization and community action skills Senator McCain simply does not possess. While, like McCain, Obama has no official standing in the region, he has tremendously useful community-based organizational skills and unparalleled popularity among those most potentially affected by this arriving storm that would make any “highlighting” of Senator McCain’s leadership skills a dicey gamble on McCain’s part. Boots on the ground, helping troubled communities, is Obama’s primary occupation. Being a politician, I don’t put it past either candidate to make political hay of this storm, but, if anything this potential tragedy can likely further highlight the differences between the two would-be presidents, with Obama having the network and community relationships to make a quiet, useful and effective difference on the ground, while Senator McCain will work through official channels, but his social, economic and empathetic distance from these at-risk communities—rather than his leadership skills—is what will likely be highlighted.