Senator Ted Kennedy - The Man Who Would Never Be President

Two of his brothers were candidates for President of the United States, and one even became President. The question is why Ted Kennedy, the highly-respected Senior Senator of Massachusetts, considered the ‘Lion of the Senate’, never followed in his brothers’ footsteps.

There were two main reasons. One, of course, is that both his brothers John and Robert had been assassinated, and that if he became President there was an excellent chance that he would be next.

Another main reason is that rumors have always flown around Ted Kennedy, like a wild tornado, that he had let a younger woman die in the incident referred to as “Chappaquiddick”. This occurred during the presidential campaign of his brother Robert Kennedy. Many idealistic young people had volunteered in this campaign, swept up by the Kennedy mystique: that a Kennedy as President could usher in a new, better world for everyone, especially the poor and minorities.

On July 18, 1969, after a party where he had been drinking, Ted Kennedy was driving his car, and one of the campaign workers, Mary Jo Kopechne, an attractive 28 year-old, was his passenger. It was nighttime, and they were on the tiny island of Chappaquiddick, on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Kennedy unfortunately drove his car off a bridge into the water. He was able to save himself by swimming to land, and although he later claimed that he had tried valiantly to save the life of Kopechne, he was unable to.