First of all, Laura Bush was a first lady, she was not elected to office.
Ted Kennedy paid an enormous price for Mary Jo's death. He neverbecame President of the United States. (Thank God!) He paid a tremendous price politically because the highest office he could ever hold would be as a US Senator, part of the wheel, but never the cog. Imagine how he felt when Kerry ran in 2004.HE lost his family. Imagine you're Ted and you have to tell Joe Sr, who was bedridden from a stroke, that his youngest would never be President because a young lady he was with had been killed and he did nothing. Imagine the guilt knowing that you caused your own father's death in November, 1969. Joan could never trust him again.
He may have had fame, but he never had respect and love......and that made him a bitter, alcoholic, and lonely man.