"I have to make a choice."
Smith took a deep breath, his gaze sweeping over the crowd as he roared out each word.
"From this day forward, I, Ron Smith, am officially leaving the Republican Party!"
"For the survival of Erie City, to secure that funding, I will join Leo Wallace's faction as a Democrat!"
That single sentence was more shocking than his entire preceding speech.
If his speech had lit the fuse, then this sentence detonated a nuclear bomb.
The air in the square instantly froze.
The cheering stopped abruptly, as if severed by an invisible blade.
Old Jack leaned on his cane, his cloudy eyes filled with dazed disbelief.
A few old women in the front row even subconsciously made the sign of the cross.
They had just come to terms with cooperating with the Democratic Party for their own benefit.
But they had never considered becoming Democrats themselves.
Those were two entirely different concepts.
