(CNN) – Shortly before Barack Obama took the stage in Berlin, Germany Thursday, John McCain’s campaign tried to keep the spotlight on domestic concerns with a conference call focused on the nation’s energy crisis, and Democratic opposition to off-shore oil drilling. “Barack Obama is touring Europe and back home his leadership, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, are opposing any effort to expand exploration in the United States,” said McCain policy advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin.

The call was originally intended to highlight a visit by the presumptive Republican nominee to an off-shore oil rig in Louisiana — a photo op that had to be scrubbed late Wednesday, as Hurricane Dolly headed for the Gulf Coast.

Listen: McCain advisors say Democratic policy is costing Americans at the pump

(CNN) — As John McCain’s apparent gaffe on a familiar topic — the surge — continued to grab headlines, his advisors told reporters that the comment was no flub.

Critics contend that the presumptive Republican nominee had made an error when he argued that “because of the surge we were able to go out and protect [a major Sunni] sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history."

Listen: McCain advisors say his Anbar comment was not a gaffe

In a conference call Wednesday, McCain foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann told reporters that the Arizona senator had not misspoken — that he had intended to tell Katie Couric that the troop surge, which began in 2007, had enabled the success of the “Anbar awakening” of major Sunni sheikhs against Al Qaeda, which began in 2006.

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