Click here to watch "Not This Time."

Millions of Americans are bound for the ballot box in less than a week and many more have taken advantage of early voting, so it's no surprise that the community advocacy group ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is in the spotlight.

John McCain's campaign and other Republicans charge that the group has created phony forms to register ineligible people and even fictitious characters like Mickey Mouse. The camp has also called for federal investigations into Barack Obama's ties to the group, claiming that the Democrat has given more than $800,000 in the last year to an organization that is a subsidiary for ACORN.

In response, ACORN today released an ad, "Not This Time" (subscription), that claims these allegations are just the latest in a string of efforts over the years to keep people from voting. Accompanied by the image of a black man getting older from frame to frame, an announcer laments that "it happened to him in 1960. In 1965. And again in 2000. He was intimidated so he wouldn't vote."

While most, if not all, third-party ads in this election have focused on attacking candidates on some issue or another, this spot differs in that it's an attempt by the group to defend itself from claims made against it. This is illustrated most clearly in the ad's closing line: "ACORN. Voting is your right. Protecting it is our job."

The spot also capitalizes on a series of voter intimidation lawsuits, particularly one against New Mexico Republicans, that ACORN is advocating for. The lawsuits, as well as the ad, were announced this morning at a press conference in Washington that was followed up by a conference call with reporters. These events, coupled with the ad's limited release (initial buy of $50,000 in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and D.C.), suggest that this spot is aimed primarily at the media and not voters themselves.

Indeed, in ACORN's conference call, Executive Director Steve Kest said the spot is running in those markets "because we’re trying to reach opinion leaders and policy makers who we would like see call on the McCain campaign to stop these efforts." He added, however, that as the group raises more money, it will look to run the ad in "more contested states." He also downplayed questions about Obama's involvement with the group, saying ACORN has "no relationship with the campaign whatsoever."

Before ACORN's press conference, the Republican National Committee released a statement by chief counsel Sean Cairncross that brushed off the lawsuits as "yet another attempt by this questionable organization to waste valuable taxpayer money and cloud their own record of voter registration fraud." The statement further asserts that Obama's ties to the ACORN subsidiary should "be scrutinized closely and both organizations should be denounced widely for implementing such low-brow tactics, which compromise the integrity of our nation’s electoral process."