NEW ORLEANS (CNN) - Making political hay of a disaster may still be distasteful, but accusing one's opponent of doing as much is alive and well.
President Barack Obama's visit to Louisiana on Monday came three days after his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, also toured damage in the region left in the wake of Hurricane Isaac.
Both men were accompanied by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican. Both men adjusted their campaign schedules to accommodate the trips. Both men met with victims and relief workers.
And both men's campaigns took heat from the other side.
Romney's campaign responded Monday evening to comments made by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who told reporters earlier in the day that "disasters are apolitical," as are disaster responses, but charged that Romney's running mate had previously acted otherwise.
"When it comes to the kinds of choices politicians make in Washington about what their priorities are, it is worth noting that last year there was an effort to underfund the money that's used to provide relief to Americans when they've been hit by disasters," Carney said. "And that effort was led by Congressman Paul Ryan, who is now running to be vice president of the United States."
Ryan's budget proposal included lowering funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and last summer, Republicans said disaster spending should be offset by spending cuts in other areas.
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan with the Romney campaign, fired back that, "Apparently there's nothing the president's team won't politicize.
"Paul Ryan believes providing aid to victims of natural disasters is a critical obligation and should be treated as a high priority within a fiscally responsible budget," Buck continued in a written statement. "It's sad that the White House would stoop to using this heartbreaking event as an opportunity to distort his record and play politics. A Romney-Ryan administration will always ensure there is disaster funding for those in need. Period."
Charges of political play also surrounded Romney's visit to the region on Friday.
Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the top Democrat in the Senate -- who has also charged that Romney went without paying taxes for a decade, which he said an unnamed person told him - harshly characterized Romney's trip as political.
"It is the height of hypocrisy for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to make a pretense of showing sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Isaac when their policies would leave those affected by this disaster stranded and on their own," Reid said in a statement.
"Under a Romney-Ryan administration, we would not have been prepared to respond to Hurricane Isaac," he charged. "If Paul Ryan and his fellow House Republicans had succeeded in blocking disaster relief last fall, there would have been no aid for the victims of Isaac today. And Paul Ryan's budget would gut disaster funding, making it much harder to get aid to our fellow Americans in their time of need."
