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Bill Nelson on the trail: Pull-ups and standing against oil drilling, warning about Medicare

Nelson casts himself as the change candidate at a time when Republicans control the executive and legislative branches
 
Published May 19, 2018

Sen. Bill Nelson campaigned across Tampa Bay Saturday, knocking on doors in southern Hillsborough County and joining a "Hands Across the Sand" demonstration in Clearwater Beach ("As long as I'm around there's not going to be any oil rigs out there!")  and, yet again, showing off his inner Jack Palance with an impromptu set of pull-ups with Clearwater firefighters.

Nelson, 75, rarely misses an opportunity to demonstrate his virility.

From Pinellas, Florida's senior senator moved on to Sun City Center, a retirement area in southern Hillsborough that is no longer the deep red Republican stronghold it used to be.  Before canvassing the subdivision with dozens of volunteers, he gave a poolside stump speech citing threats to Florida's environment and Medicare and Social Security as helping persuade him and and wife Grace he needed to run for another Senate term.

"I knew that I could not walk away off the playing field. I had to stay in the fight because of what we have facing us," said Nelson, the career politician positioning himself as the change candidate in the era of Trump and GOP control in Washington. He faces the toughest general election challenge of his long career in Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

Here's Nelson's speech: