ST. PAUL, Minn. - A conservative political watch dog group says that Republican leaders are upset that hurricane Gustav coverage is overshadowing the Republican National Convention this week.

“The Republicans are looking at a situation where their convention is receiving dramatically less coverage due to the storm, and they privately express anger with the unfortunate timing and the diminished publicity,” says Mark Dice, founder of The Resistance , an independent conservative political watchdog organization.

“While it would be quite heartless and political suicide to voice such feelings publicly, it’s what a lot of Republicans are feeling,” he says.

Mark adds that the reason President Bush and Dick Cheney canceled their appearances at the convention has nothing to do with them being busy directing disaster relief, but that McCain is trying to distance himself from the Bush administration for political reasons and is using disaster relief as the perfect excuse to cancel the appearances.

“Bush has become a burden for McCain, and since the Obama campaign is saying that a McCain win in November would be four more years of Bush, the two are keeping their distance from each other,” says Dice.

“The fact that McCain is considering canceling his acceptance speech from the convention center, and instead do it via satellite from the Gulf coast is shameful. It’s just a pathetic attempt for him to pretend to be presidential.”