Bernie Sanders never came close to beating Hillary Clinton, but his campaign still mattered. Here's why.

When Bernie Sanders took an early, exploratory trip to Iowa, a curious crowd of 150 or so turned out at a college-town bookstore, where they listened politely as he raged against the billionaires and oligarchs he said were destroying America. The angry aria from the wild-haired, slouch-shouldered senator from Vermont was delivered beneath a sign reading "Science Fiction and Fantasy," which seemed an apt, if unintended, metaphor. How many people would take seriously a 73-year-old Jewish grandfather and democratic socialist, vying for the presidential nomination of a party he never joined and trying to topple one of the country's most powerful political dynasties? Sanders' thick Brooklyn baritone became a clarion call for the angry and the economically aggrieved, his rallies a sprawling coast-to-coast spectacle that blended the hippie vibe of Woodstock with the militancy of Occupy Wall Street. Sen. Bernie Sanders signaled Thursday night that he was winding down his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, but he did not explicitly quit the campaign or endorse rival Hillary Clinton.