Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1505: Forrest Gump Becomes an Election Slogan
"Hey, Sonny..."

"Ronald, I'm glad you're here..."

Ronald once again brought his family to Palm Springs for vacation. Sonny Bono, Cher's ex-husband, former mayor of Palm Springs, and organizer of the Palm Springs Film Festival, now retired from public office, hosted Ronald and his family throughout the trip.

Sonny Bono is also the honorary president of the Palm Springs Film Festival and has a great influence here. Some of Daydream's foreign imports (especially Chinese-language films from the three places) will come to the film festival held at the beginning of the year to try to gain some influence, so that they can be sold at a higher price when they are released in the United States.

The box office of Forrest Gump was still strong, and Ronald was mainly busy with the TV broadcast, videotapes and soundtracks. It was easier to broadcast on TV, as he only needed to trim a few overly brutal scenes of the Vietnam War and remove a few seconds to meet the TV rating standards.

Ronald plans to put one or two scenes that were cut from the finished film into the videotape. For various reasons, Forrest Gump could not be shown in the director's version in the cinema, and the videotape should give some compensation to the die-hard fans who bought the videotape for their own collection.

As for the soundtrack CD, it was the most troublesome. The whole movie contained more than 40 popular American songs from the 1950s to the 1980s. It can be said that these middle-aged people can almost hear the most popular American music of each year in the movie.

This also brought confusion about copyright. The copyright authorization for use in the movie is not the same as the authorization for the soundtrack. Ronald had made a fortune through the soundtrack of "Dirty Dancing" before, and it had long been known in the music industry that he would not be able to take advantage of it this time.

Over the past 40 years, the copyright of these songs has also undergone major changes in the music industry and has become very complicated. Some of the original record companies have been acquired, and the copyright packages of some songs have been sold as investment products, so it takes a lot of effort to sort out the copyright agreements.

Ronald also had to work hard for the company, and he had to make phone calls to communicate with some senior executives. Even so, the copyright of some songs could not be obtained, such as "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd and "Love Her Madly" by the Doors.

The copyright holder offered a sky-high price, and Ronald had no choice but to give up. However, "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd was included after Ronald made the final decision and paid a high price.

However, Jim Morrison, the lead singer of the Doors, had passed away a long time ago, so the copyright owner had no pressure during the negotiations. Even Ronald couldn't bear the high price he asked for, so the band became a lost gem in this CD, and the four songs used in the movie were not included.

This time, the soundtrack is divided into two CDs, with a total of 32 songs, plus the theme song of the movie, released as a set.

By the time Ronald came to Palm Springs for vacation, the album was already available in some music CD stores. Without any large-scale promotion, its sales in the first week ranked 35th in the United States.

This was a very good sign, because sales were strong in the Midwest and South, where distributors were rushing to ship copies, and sales spiked in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, where local right-wing radio stations were praising the album, saying it was a chance to buy all the music worth listening to from the past forty years in one go, and add a Doors greatest hits collection to round out your collection.

The factory is now stepping up production and delivery, and soon movie and music fans across the country will be able to buy two high-quality rock records of the past forty years at a cheap price.

“Why aren’t there any songs from the British Invasion period in your two CDs?” Sonny Bono is also a famous singer who has won number one on the charts, but he sang love songs at that time, and he and Cher were seen as a sweet singing duo of golden boy and jade girl, which was inconsistent with the rock-oriented temperament of Forrest Gump, so his songs were not used this time.

But Sonny was a professional after all, and he could see at a glance that Ronald had deliberately omitted the dominance of a large number of British rock bands over America at the time in Forrest Gump.

For example, the bands that used the most interludes in Forrest Gump, The Doors and CCR, were from the same period, and were even more famous than them, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, which also became very famous later.

At that time, these British rock bands were superior to American rock bands in terms of sales and music reviews.

"It's hard for me to imagine that Forrest Gump would listen to those songs. He's a young man from a small town in Arkansas, so of course he wants to listen to American rock and roll sung by American singers..."

Ronald smiled and said that it was obvious that Sonny Bono had not seen Forrest Gump. Ronald joked that he would put on a show in the evening to let Sonny Bono, a RINO (R.I.N.O.) learn some basic knowledge about the movie.

That's why Sonny Bono accompanied Ronald throughout the trip. He originally planned to run for governor of California, but when he heard that the Elephant Democratic congressman in his district was retiring and would not participate in the mid-term elections in November, he immediately changed his plan and decided to run for the California 44th District Congressman.

The district where Palm Springs is located is mainly desert, with some famous resort cities, known for its warm climate and tourism industry. Because of its vast land and sparse population, it is a typical Elephant Party district.

Sonny Bono, who felt that his acting career was over and wanted to transform into a politician, immediately began to publicly declare that his political views have always been conservative and that he would participate in the midterm elections as a Republican.

However, he is not really a supporter of the Democratic Party's ideology. He just likes the policies of former President Ronald Sr., which allowed him to make more money and pay less taxes.

"Oh, it's really embarrassing. I have so much to do right now. I need to attend a lot of fund-raising events to prepare for the election, and I also need to visit voters door-to-door to ask them to vote for me. Fortunately, I was famous when I was a singer, and those female voters still remember me."

"Old friend, I'm ready..." Ronald smiled and took out a business card, which showed the organizer of a super PAC established in California. Needless to say, Ronald was the big money behind this PAC and donated a lot of money to them through various funds.

Ronald's goal is to try his best to fund politicians who are friendly to him to come to power. For example, two California senators often receive checks from a PAC called "Make California Better".

The elected congressman near Beverly Hills where Ronald lives and the elected prosecutor of Los Angeles County, California are all his public relations focus. It doesn't matter whether they are elephant parties or donkey parties. What matters is that he has his own people in key positions where he lives.

Therefore, who is elected is not the key issue. The key is that the elected people must thank Ronald's fund and contribute to their campaign. It is not important who appears at the fundraising party. What is important is the names of the candidates told by the brokers behind the scenes.

……

"It's really good. These songs bring back memories..." Sonny Bono was smart enough to borrow a copy and show it in the theater of the luxury hotel where Ronald was staying.

He himself was moved to tears as he recalled the days when he was a big star and his songs were often on the charts. In 1965, "I Got You Babe" sung with Cher also won the first place on the charts...

"Honestly, do you have a high chance of success in this election?"

Ronald looked at Sonny Bono and was confused. Susan Strickland, the Donkey Party candidate, also had many supporters and received funding from the Donkey Party National Convention, which was specifically used to attack the Elephant Party candidate.

"I don't have a big problem. This year will be a red tide. When the Democratic Party wins a big victory, maybe we can even take over both the Senate and the House of Representatives and make William lame..."

"Hey?"

Ronald hadn't seen him for a while, and he found that he was now speaking a lot of political terms. It seemed very professional, and that was the case.

"We have a very good whip, Newt Gingrich. He launched a campaign called the Contract with America, which emphasizes reducing the size of government, increasing government accountability, reducing taxes, strengthening public safety, and reforming the welfare system..."

After listening to Sonny Bono's explanation, Ronald realized that this congressional minority leader, like the party whip, had come up with the midterm election platform entirely targeting First Lady Rodham.

Rodham wanted to enter politics, so as soon as her husband took office, she began to push for universal health care, big welfare, and a big government. Gingrich did the opposite, pushing for reform of the welfare system, cutting existing welfare benefits, and reducing government spending.

In order to implement this platform, Gingrich also announced that if the Democratic Party can win and occupy a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, he will legislate and promote the bills promised in the "Contract with America" ​​within the first 100 days of taking office as Speaker of the House of Representatives...

This promise was also made to First Lady Rodham. The health care team she leads wants to take advantage of the Democratic Party's control of both houses of Congress to pass universal health care legislation in one fell swoop during this Congress.

According to convention, this bill will be called the "Rodham Act." Being able to leave her name on such a bill that changed the health insurance system for all people will give Rodham an excellent bargaining chip in her future political career. When she runs for public office in the future, she can tell the low-income voters of the Democratic Party that their health insurance is provided by me, so you have to vote for me. This is an inexhaustible political resource that can be passed on to future generations.

However, Rodham's real ability was not that good. If his husband William had handled this matter, even if he had not succeeded, he would have certainly finished the lengthy discussion in the House of Representatives, formed a draft, or even passed the draft and submitted it to the senators for approval.

Rodham has yet to win majority approval in the House of Representatives. The more debates there are, the more people realize that her bill contains too many imaginary contents and will bring huge benefits to the federal government, while the state government will gain nothing and may even lose the procurement contract for the public hospital system that they have worked so hard to obtain.

In contrast, voters have a very high approval rating for Gingrich and they all hope that the elected Speaker of the House of Representatives will bring more benefits to voters and educate the President and his wife on what it means to truly serve the voters.

In other words, Gingrich directed the Elephant Party's campaign headquarters to give the congressional candidates in each state the overall strategy for this midterm election, which was to attack First Lady Rodham.

Instead of spending a lot of effort to describe what they can bring to the voters in this district, they might as well spend their money attacking the first lady. If you continue to vote for Rodham's Donkey Party, then in the next two years, your district will still achieve nothing, and none of the things you expect will be achieved.

"Is this even possible?" Ronald was a little surprised. Could it be that the voters hated a person so much that they would elect another person just to make her lose face?

"Of course, our internal poll numbers are good. As long as I have enough funds and invest in qualified party workers on the ground, then winning the 44th constituency will be a piece of cake. I heard that overall, we can flip to constituencies in this election."

Ground promotion means hiring volunteers to knock on doors before the election and ask people to vote for them. Flipping means that the constituency that originally belonged to the Donkey Party has elected the candidate of the Elephant Party this time.

Sonny Bono was very confident, which was a good thing. He also had a special liking for Congressional Minority Leader Newt Gingrich, which prompted Ronald to turn on the TV on his way back to Los Angeles to watch Gingrich's speech on NBC.

“We need to balance government spending and get the federal government to a balanced budget.

We need to cut the welfare system and strengthen the review of welfare recipients. Welfare recipients must find a job or participate in certain work-related activities (such as vocational training) to continue receiving benefits. Welfare recipients cannot receive benefits for more than five years. People cannot live on welfare for their entire lives. They must earn the dignity of being able to work.

We will hire more law enforcement officers, strengthen public safety and crime prevention, and increase penalties for violent crimes..."

Gingrich is a little fat, with white skin, a fat head and big ears, but his words are very inflammatory, which is very pleasant to the ears of voters who support the Elephant Party.

"We are not privileged congressmen, but public servants serving you. Within 100 days after taking office, I will abolish the privileges of congressmen to be exempted from certain federal labor laws and require Congress to comply with federal labor laws..."

Ronald was a little surprised when he heard this. Gingrich was going to take action against his colleagues and exempt them from some of their privileges. Would congressmen no longer be able to make a fortune by speculating in stocks based on inside information?
"These are common sense that everyone has known since the founding of the United States. The Donald Trump Party is trying to make you not believe in common sense. After universal health care, a large number of people who cannot afford commercial health insurance will enter the system. Can you, the taxpayers, still get better insurance terms?"

This was a direct attack on Rodham. Ronald felt that Gingrich seemed very confident and did not even give the president face.

"Like a movie I saw recently, Forrest Gump, an average person with an IQ of only 75 also knows that there is no free lunch in the world. Stupidity is the stupid things that normal people do, not a person being called stupid.

I may not have the education of those people, but looking at their ignorant proposals, they are just doing stupid things... and you, the backbone of America, just like Forrest Gump, work hard and raise children, we must not let these hippies do stupid things to destroy the achievements of Forrest Gump. "

"Hey!"

Ronald was shocked. Why did this guy quote the characters and lines from the movie to campaign for his own election without asking for his opinion? Doesn't this make him look like he is supporting the Elephant Party? Ronald never openly supported any party because if he publicly announced his support for one side, he would offend the other side, which is definitely not a good thing for a movie director and media company owner.

"Hello?" Ronald immediately called lawyer Lindsay Doll, "Gingrich is such an idiot, can we sue him for copyright infringement?"

(End of this chapter)