Chappaquiddick scandal permanently blocked Ted Kennedy’s presidential ambitions

Evidence

A year after Robert’s death, in the early hours of July 19, 1969, Ted took a wrong turn and drove his car off a bridge and into an ocean channel off Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. His passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned, and Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of the accident. … In 1979, Ted Kennedy decided to run for the presidency as an insurgent Democratic candidate against his own party’s president, Jimmy Carter. He had outlived his brothers and felt ready to take on their mantle. But the scandal of Chappaquiddick effectively crushed his chances of winning the nomination. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 223