(Mother Jones) -- For those of us who are sort of fascinated by the rise of Scott Walker as a Republican presidential contender, here's an interesting chart from Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University. It shows the relative conservative-ness of GOP presidential nominees in the past six contested elections, and it demonstrates what an outlier Walker would be if he won next year's primary: He'd be the first candidate since Ronald Reagan who's more conservative than the average of the Republican field. And by McDaniel's measure,1 he'd actually be the most conservative recent nominee, period—even more right-wing than Reagan:
Walker is well to the right end of the conservative spectrum, residing in the ideological neighborhood of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul…It is not a stretch to argue that if nominated, Walker would be the most conservative Republican nominee since Barry Goldwater in 1964.