WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A controversial ad that portrays Rep. Harold Ford Jr. as an anti-gun, weak-on-defense playboy is no longer running in Tennessee, a Republican National Committee official tells CNN.

RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman said he does not think the ad is racist, as some people have suggested because it used a Caucasian actress to claim she partied with Ford, who is African-American, at a Playboy party.

"As someone who is extraordinarily sensitive to it, I don't believe that it was," Mehlman told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Wednesday on the Situation Room. "At the same time, there are good people on both sides who believe otherwise. I respect where they are coming from. I hope they respect where I am coming from."

Mehlman also denied having any knowledge about the ad, because it was paid for by the RNC's independent expenditure unit.

"So these ads are what are called independent expenditures, they are run by a separate unit that works not in the RNC," Mehlman said.

He added, "That's the crazy thing about how this law works. I pay for it, I can't have anything to do with creating it, can't figure when its going to be on television, can't figure out when it's going to stop. If your viewers our confused, imagine how we feel dealing with these campaign laws."

Danny Diaz, an RNC spokesman, said the "ad has run its course." But Diaz noted that "We are going to continue to talk about Harold Ford's flawed record."