Chapter 286: Chapter 145: Just Half a Mayor

As the primary election date drew near, the campaign entered a white-hot phase.

John Murphy’s campaign bus crisscrossed every small town in Western Pennsylvania.

His campaign strategy had undergone a fundamental shift; he decisively cut all trips to University City and the salons of Philadelphia.

As the darling of the Establishment Faction, Aston Monroe had already locked down the highly educated liberal voters.

At cocktail parties where "structural inequality" and "abstract social justice" were discussed, anything Murphy said would just make him sound like a poor imitation of Monroe.

Fighting for those fickle, idealistic votes just wasn’t worth the effort.

They also strategically gave up on the student vote. It was better to be more down-to-earth than to waste time debating with them.

Because Murphy held a trump card that Monroe and Warren absolutely did not: the fait accompli Leo Wallace had created in Pittsburgh.

Ideology is cheap; anyone can shout slogans. But bread is expensive, and only the man holding five hundred million US Dollars in bonds can hand it out.

In this regard, Murphy had a natural advantage.

So, Murphy put on his dust-covered work jacket.

He threw himself among the coal mine entrances of Allegheny County and into the farmers’ markets of Bedford.

Standing there, he didn’t even need much rhetorical skill. He just had to raise a hand and point toward the dust and smoke rising in the direction of Pittsburgh.

"See that? That’s the change I brought. That’s five hundred million US Dollars in cold, hard cash. That’s the revival of the entire Rust Belt."

The entirety of Pittsburgh had long since become a massive construction site.

The streets of the South District were torn up, revealing dark brown earth and hundred-year-old drainage pipes.

Dozens of tower cranes operated simultaneously along the banks of the Monongahela River, their giant steel arms tracing lines across the gray sky.

To the environmentalists living in the suburbs, the dust-filled air and acrid smells were nothing short of pollution.

But to the workers who had just received their weekly paychecks and the merchants waiting for business, it was dust of gold.

Every rumble of the pile drivers echoing over Pittsburgh declared Leo Wallace’s victory.

City Hall. The Mayor’s Office.

Leo stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind.

On the surface, everything was under his control.

The projects were underway, and even the most difficult problem—logistics—had been solved by independent truck drivers.

They had to pay higher shipping fees, but at least the steel was coming in, and so was the cement.

Moreover, the word from the business community was in his favor.

The board members of the Western Pennsylvania Railway Company and the president of the freight truckers’ association had already started putting pressure on Morganfield.

A short-term blockade was a political statement; a long-term one was commercial suicide.

The big corporations couldn’t just sit back and watch as this enormous logistics cake was carved up by independent operators.

Capital’s primary instinct is to chase profit. They wouldn’t tolerate losing market share long-term over Morganfield’s personal grudge.

Morganfield was a shrewd businessman.

’Knowing the blockade has already failed and is now hurting his allies’ interests, he surely won’t maintain the embargo for long.’

’The transportation arteries will be completely cleared soon.’

On the surface, everything was under Leo’s control.

But he knew very well that this massive municipal machine was not running smoothly.

The resistance wasn’t external, but internal.

Just then, Ethan pushed the door open and came in, holding a thick file. The look on his face wasn’t good.

"It’s the city council again."

Ethan placed the file on the desk, his voice laced with exhaustion.

"Regarding the bid for the Inland Port’s Zone B warehousing center, Representative Gavin Stone has raised an objection. He’s demanding we add a restriction to the bidding terms regarding the ’localized procurement of environmentally friendly building materials.’"

"What’s his reason?" Leo asked.

"The reason is ’to support local businesses,’" Ethan sneered. "But in reality, there’s only one building material supplier in all of Pittsburgh that meets his standards: the company run by his brother-in-law. If we don’t agree, he’ll block our land use permit in the City Planning Commission."

"And then there’s Linda Rossi," Ethan continued. "She has an issue with the contractor for the Hill District school renovation project. She’s insisting on bringing in a so-called third-party supervision company to audit the construction quality."

"That company is run by her former campaign manager. If we don’t pay their supervision fee, she’ll mobilize the parent-teacher committee to cause a scene at the Department of Education, claiming we’re cutting corners."

Leo looked at the file.

’This is reality.’

He had flipped the table on Morganfield in court and announced an open bidding process.

The city council crowd, forced by the surging tide of public opinion and the five hundred million in the bank, had no choice but to bow their heads and cooperate.

But they hadn’t given up.

They were the local snakes, old parasites who had been burrowing within this bureaucratic system for decades.

They used their committee review powers, their authority over all sorts of trivial administrative approvals, to latch onto every single project like leeches.

They didn’t want to kill the projects; they just wanted a piece of the pie.

"Give that supervision company a two percent consulting fee," Leo said, his face expressionless. "And tell Stone his relative can get on the procurement list, but the price has to be ten percent lower."

"Leo!" Ethan was incredulous. "We’re bowing to corruption! We’re becoming the very people we used to hate!"