Spoiler alert: Bernie Sanders, who last week became Hillary Clinton's first declared challenger, will not beat her to next year's Democrat presidential nomination.
But that does not make his quixotic campaign any less interesting: Mr Sanders is the first Jew to run for president since Senator Joe Lieberman's ill-fated bid in 2004.
In many ways, Mr Lieberman - who, as Al Gore's running mate in 2000, was the first Jewish candidate on a major party ticket - is Mr Sanders's polar opposite. While Mr Lieberman drifted steadily to the right - he campaigned for Republican John McCain in 2008 - the Vermont senator is a self-described socialist.
The longest-serving independent in the history of the US Congress, Mr Sanders was elected the north-eastern liberal state's sole member of the House of Representatives in 1990 and became one of its two senators in 2006. Known throughout the state simply by his first name, he has regularly won the backing of around two in three Vermonters, winning re-election in 2012 with 71 per cent of the vote.
