Click here to watch "John McCain's Social Security Disgrace."

Going into this election, John McCain might have considered the senior vote a safe play. After all, the 71-year-old GOP senator falls into that age bracket himself, regularly cashes in his retirement checks and leads Barack Obama among voters 65 and older in recent polls.

But a senior advocacy group is aiming to separate the Arizona lawmaker from those voters in light of comments he made a couple weeks ago calling Social Security a "disgrace.” The comments prompted the Alliance For Retired Americans, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, to launch two TV ads in the battleground state of Pennsylvania that call McCain out for shunning Social Security while reaping the benefits.

"Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today," McCain said at a Denver town hall meeting July 7. "And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed." (Click here for a longer video of the speech.) He elaborated a few days later aboard the Straight Talk Express, saying that young people "are paying so much that they are paying into a system that they won't receive benefits from on its present track that it’s on -- that's the point."

Both of the group’s 30-second spots are running in various markets throughout Pennsylvania, including Wilkes-Barre, in order to coincide with McCain's town hall meeting there today. The spots show McCain's comments and get reaction from various seniors. In the first ad (subscription) an announcer asks one woman if she knew that McCain collects Social Security while calling it a "disgrace," to which she responds in a snide tone: "Get out of here. They get everything."

The other spot (subscription) depicts another senior woman who is none too pleased with what the GOP candidate said. As she stands on a porch, she throws up her arms and says in a scolding manner: "I’ve got to say: To keep your retirement happy and sunny, tell John McCain, ‘Keep your mitts off my money.’" She is joined by another woman, and the two point together as if looking directly at McCain: "Keep your mitts off my money!"

Marcie Kohenak, spokeswoman for the Alliance, said, "A lot of our members are very supportive of John McCain as a person and they see him as a peer. But once our members begin to know how he feels about Social Security and the fact that he's calling it a disgrace while still taking it, it helps them understand that he isn't going to be working in their best interest."

The group’s reasoning for targeting Pennsylvania is twofold: The state is expected to play an important role in the election and it has a high concentration of seniors in the in the markets of the ad buy -- Scranton, Clarks Summit and Wilkes-Barre. The ads are only a portion of a campaign scheduled to follow the senator around the country to senior-heavy states like Florida and his home turf of Arizona. Although McCain has made other comments the group found "appalling," Kohenak said, this was the last straw.

"It sounded like this was the first time he was realizing how Social Security works, and so either he doesn't know how it works or he doesn’t care," Kohenak said.

Numbers the U.S. Census Bureau collected from 2006 back up the group's strategy: About 15 percent of Pennsylvania's population is 65 and older, and that jumps to 20 percent in Wilkes-Barre. In comparison, Florida's 65-and-older population makes up 20 percent of its population. The national average is 12 percent.

It's interesting that the ad includes primarily women, among whom McCain continues to trail Obama, according to recent polls. He was hit in that demographic last week by Planned Parenthood.

Calls to the McCain press office and Republican National Committee were not returned.