Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is clearly both a hated man — and a beloved one. At the same time as Wisconsin Democrats are organizing a massive recall petition drive against him, on the other end he has been invited to deliver a a keynote speech at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference, organizers announced on Tuesday.
CPAC 2012 will be held from February 9 through February 11. Comparing this with the timeline for the recall campaign, this means that Walker’s big speech will be held about three weeks after Democrats handed in the petitions to hold the recall election. (This analysis assumes that the Dems will have met the goal, rather than falling short.)
Thus, the state election officials will be in the the middle of reviewing the signatures, a process that will likely take 60 days. Meanwhile, we can imagine that both Democrats and Republicans will be actively campaigning back home in Wisconsin, while Walker is making his appeal in Washington to national conservative activists — and perhaps more importantly, conservative donors — for what could be the second most watched campaign of the year.