New political phrase: the "Acela Primary"

On April 26, five northeast states will hold primaries which is being labeled as the "Acela Primary" as the political shorthand for the next week. Shows how the Acela has succeeded in becoming a key brand name and tag for the media & political class to use in the Northeast. I suspect it may get a lot of use in the coming week on the cable networks with so much airtime to fill in the endless Presidential race coverage. Free advertising for Amtrak; whether it will make any difference in ridership down the road or not, who knows?

Washington Post article: Can Clinton and Trump ride to big victories in next week’s ‘Acela primary’?

Former Governor Rendell used it in a quote:

Together with New York, the states voting in next week’s Acela primary — named after the high-speed Amtrak train that travels through them — should effectively put the nomination out of reach for Sanders, said former Pennsylvania governor Edward Rendell, a Clinton backer.

“The math will be too hard,” Rendell said. “My guess is she will be up by 300 delegates, and after the Acela primary there are only six, seven, eight opportunities left, and the only really big one is California. That’s not enough.”

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I put this post into the Rail Advocacy Forum because any discussion about the use of "Acela Primary" is going to veer into politics.

CNN is using it as well. http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/24/politics/republican-party-acela-primary/index.html

Is this a twist of the old "subway world series" term?

Now the political headline writers are using the Acela primary to play on words. Poltico: Clinton aims to railroad Sanders in ‘Acela primary'.

First sentence of the Politco article: "Bernie Sanders looks to be headed for a rough ride through the Acela corridor."

Come on, to get a rough ride, all Bernie has to do is take the Acela.

It may not be that widely used. From the Washington Post's Daily 202:

"The Acela Primary" is something of a Beltway term. Our analytics partners at Zignal Labs tracked only about 1,000 usages of the term across all forms of media over the past week.

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DCAKen said:

It may not be that widely used. From the Washington Post's Daily 202:

"The Acela Primary" is something of a Beltway term. Our analytics partners at Zignal Labs tracked only about 1,000 usages of the term across all forms of media over the past week.

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I have seen Acela Primary used by CNN and MSNBC which are based more in NYC than DC. But it makes sense that it would be mainly used by the DC and NYC based media and maybe by some in the Philly and Boston markets. In short, those who live and travel along the NEC. Reporters and media outlets based in the Midwest, the South, or the West Coast are not going to be inclined to use 'Acela Primary' because they then have to explain it to their readers and viewers.

The term will have a very short life span anyway. By Thursday, the media will have moved on to the next primary contests and "Acela primary" will fade away until the 2020 primaries and even then would only be used if enough NEC states hold their primaries on the same day. The primary calendar always changes up for each presidential election cycle. Maybe by 2020, there will be one or two Acela II trainsets undergoing testing on the NEC...

Tonight's (4/26) Acela Primaries:

GOTP:

Trump. 5 Huge Victories!!!

Demo/Socialist:

Clinton 3 Victories (PA./MD/DE)

Sanders. 1 Victory.(RI)

1Too Close to Call ( Conn.)

Clinton took CT too.

Well, it appears the term was being more widely used, too bad a lot of the local anchors don't know how to pronounce "Acela"

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/videos/2016-04-26/all-aboard-what-to-call-tuesday-s-5-east-coast-primaries

Here is another link to such comedy..

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/wednesday-morning-funny-video-tv-anchors-unable-pronounce-acela-primary

This is the best moment of the election year so far!!!

bmorechris said:

Well, it appears the term was being more widely used, too bad a lot of the local anchors don't know how to pronounce "Acela"

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/videos/2016-04-26/all-aboard-what-to-call-tuesday-s-5-east-coast-primaries

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That was pretty hilarious, but I think the fault lies more with the local anchors (and their producers) than it does with Amtrak, as the Bloomberg people suggest. So what if news anchors in Yuma, El Paso or Bozeman (to use three of the examples) don't know how to pronounce Amtrak's northeast corridor express train?

bmorechris said:

Well, it appears the term was being more widely used, too bad a lot of the local anchors don't know how to pronounce "Acela"

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Would not have anticipated that many news anchors or news readers, even those well outside of the Northeast, would have that much difficulty in using the correct pronunciation for Acela. It is not exactly a tongue twister (made-up) word. Still, maybe all the news readers stumbling over the word will get the Acela a tad more publicity.