Obama ‘optimistic’ despite ‘some rough and tumble’ politics

President Obama on Sunday told supporters he is optimistic about his second-term agenda despite “some rough and tumble” politics expected along the way.

“Despite the doom and gloom, you should be optimistic about this country. I sure am,” the president said at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) fundraiser in Atlanta, according to pool reports.

{mosads}“If you’re in this business folks are going to take their shots at you, and I’ve got the gray hair to prove it,” Obama said.

The event came after a tough week for the president, with the IRS scandal and controversies threatening to push Obama’s agenda off track.

Lawmakers vowed on Sunday to pursue their probe of the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups, and the president faces questions over the Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press journalists’ phone records and the administration’s handling of the Benghazi terror attacks.

Obama, though, maintained those controversies haven’t knocked him off course.

“That kind of stuff doesn’t bother me, and it doesn’t bother others who are in elected office if we feel like we’re getting stuff done,” he said.

But Obama lamented the “shortage of common sense in Washington,” and said the GOP-controlled House presented a roadblock to some of his administration’s goals.

He praised Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), the DSCC chairman, who introduced Obama at the fundraiser, for not being “ideological” and urged voters to help elect more Democrats to Congress.

“If we can get a critical mass in the Senate and folks like that in the House then the sky is the limit. Nothing can stop us,” Obama said.

Obama said he held out hope for pushing through an immigration reform bill this year, implementing his landmark healthcare reform law and taking advantage of a potential “energy revolution.”

The DSCC event came after the president spoke at the Morehouse College commencement earlier Sunday in Atlanta. The president will return to Washington later this evening.