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By Eli Segall

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Everett Alvarez Jr. was flying a Navy fighter jet at 500 mph toward an enemy naval base on Aug. 5, 1964, when he was shot down by North Vietnamese enemy fire.

Pulled from the water, he was soon sent to the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” where, as a prisoner of war, he was beaten, tortured and kept in solitary confinement.

Alvarez, a Maryland delegate to the Republican National Convention here, was America’s first POW in Vietnam. He was also held the longest: 8 1/2 years. “If you wanted a good cell, you had to come early,” he said, smiling, in a recent interview.

Alvarez, 70, is honorary chairman of Maryland’s 71-member delegation, but is spending little time with the group. Instead, as an invited guest of McCain, a longtime friend and fellow POW, he is staying with the senator’s campaign in a downtown Minneapolis hotel, 10 miles from the Maryland delegation in St. Paul.

Still, on Wednesday Alvarez will join his state on the floor of the Xcel Energy Center, the site of the convention, and announce the group’s support for McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The convention runs Sept. 1-4.

James Pelura III, chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, said most POWs are not “flag-waving” political activists — except for this election.

“This time it’s different, because it’s one of their own that’s out there running now,” Pelura said.

As Alvarez says, “John has continually demonstrated, since the days we were in those cells in Vietnam, that it’s service over self.”

McCain, also a Navy pilot, met Alvarez in 1972, toward the end of the war after North Vietnam relaxed conditions for its POWs, Alvarez said. McCain was held for 5 1/2 years, most, like Alvarez, in the Hanoi Hilton. Both moved to the Washington, D.C.-area after the war, and served as co-chairman of Veterans for Bush in 1988 and 1992, when George H.W. Bush ran for president and re-election, respectively.

Maryland delegates describe Alvarez, who has chronicled his war experiences in books and interviews, as a down-to-earth, intelligent man. But unlike many POWs, they note, he does not shy from recounting his time as a prisoner.

“If someone asks, he talks,” said Michael P. Cronin, a Maryland delegate who, as a Navy pilot in Vietnam, was a also POW for seven years. “He doesn’t seek publicity. It comes to him.”

A Salinas, Calif., native, Alvarez earned an electrical engineering degree at a California university, and then joined the Navy. He was shot down on his first mission in Vietnam, a reprisal raid launched the day after two U.S. aircraft carriers were attacked.

He moved to Rockville, Md., in 1976 to finish his Navy service in Washington, and was later appointed deputy director of the Peace Corps, and then deputy administrator of the U.S. Veterans Administration. He now runs Conwal Inc., a McLean, Va.-based management consulting firm.

Most Maryland delegates know Alvarez’s story, but say they don’t know him well personally, as they’ve only met him a few times. Cronin, however, lived a half-mile from Alvarez for 12 years, and their sons played on the same youth football team.

Cronin said he is most impressed by Alvarez’s refusal to dwell on the past.

“I tell you one thing, he doesn’t waste a lot of time thinking about his years as a prisoner,” he said. “His focus is getting on with life and doing the best he can.”

Capital News Service contributed to this report.

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ROCKVILLE, Md. — Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown’s cousin was shot to death in the garage of her Montgomery Village home Saturday night by an estranged boyfriend, who was killed by police, authorities said Monday.

Brown learned about Catherine Brown’s death shortly after arriving in Denver on Sunday afternoon for the Democratic National Convention, he said in a statement.

“I will be traveling back to Maryland immediately to be with my family during this difficult time,” Brown said. “I leave my fellow delegates with a heavy heart and I ask that everyone keep my family in their prayers.”

The shooting happened shortly after 10:30 p.m. Saturday, police said. Preliminary autopsy results indicated that the cause of Brown’s death was a single gunshot wound. Detectives have confirmed that her ex-boyfriend, Michael Keith Wilson, of Hagerstown, shot her.

Wilson was shot multiple times by police, authorities said. The number of shots fired by police and whether by one or both officers is still under investigation. The two officers have been placed on routine administrative leave for an investigation.

Montgomery County police responded to the home after receiving a call that two people were screaming, and a man was trying to force a woman into a house.

Police say Wilson was holding Brown against her will. While officers tried to calm Wilson, shots were fired.

Both Brown and Wilson died at the scene, police said.

Wilson was a private security guard at the Washington National Cathedral. Brown was a teacher at the Beauvoir School on the cathedral grounds.

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LANHAM, Md. (AP) — Lawyer and nonprofit executive Donna Edwards won a special election Tuesday for Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, becoming the state’s first black woman to be elected to Congress.

Edwards, a Democrat, beat Republican Peter James in the race to serve the remainder of former Congressman Albert Wynn’s term. Wynn left office on May 31 to take a lobbying job in the capital after losing to Edwards in the February Democratic primary by 22 percentage points.

Edwards, 49, will hold the seat for the rest of the year. James also won his party’s primary in February, meaning he and Edwards will face each other again in November’s general election to determine who will serve when the next Congress begins in early 2009.

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UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — Democratic Party leaders in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have chosen lawyer Donna Edwards as their candidate for a special election to fill the remaining six months of Congressman Albert Wynn’s term.

Edwards had defeated Wynn in the February primary. She is scheduled to face Republican Peter James in the November election for the 4th District seat.

But Wynn will resign at the end of May before his term ends, and Governor Martin O’Malley has called an election for a temporary replacement on June 17.

Montgomery County Republican Party leaders have chosen James to face Edwards in June. Prince George’s County Republicans are scheduled to meet next week to choose a candidate.

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Gov. Martin O’Malley said Wednesday he is exploring how to hold a special election to replace Rep. Albert Wynn, who lost in February’s Democratic primary and plans to step down in June.

O’Malley said he may try to change the state law governing special elections before the General Assembly adjourns next week in order to speed up the process and reduce expenses. The governor said he is “musing on the possibilities of having only one general (election) and not having to do a primary.”

“I’m leaning that way,” O’Malley said.

The problem, O’Malley told reporters, is that he’s required by law to order that a special primary take place to choose the candidates before a special general election can be held. By the time that process unfolds, O’Malley said whoever won would only have about three months in office. Plus, holding another primary so soon after the one in February would create “unnecessary expense,” O’Malley said.

To change the law, though, lawmakers will have to hurry. The General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn Monday.

“What we need to do, though, is we need to look at all of the facts in the law here, and it may require a change in the state statute in order to do this in a way that makes sense without putting unnecessary expense out there on us to hold yet another special election,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley cited the war in Iraq and the housing foreclosure crisis as reasons to make sure residents of Maryland’s 4th District are represented in Congress, even if some critics say the remainder of Wynn’s the term isn’t long enough to justify an expensive special election.

“I have a hard time thinking it’s not important when you have a congressional seat that would be vacant for 25 percent of a two-year term at the same time that so many young people from Prince George’s and other counties are coming back from Iraq in body bags in order to defend democracy,” O’Malley said.

Under state law, O’Malley can choose to leave the seat vacant for the rest of the term. The governor emphasized that he still wants to talk to Maryland Republicans about the possible special election.

The two jurisdictions included in the district, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, are already scheduled to hold two special elections this year to fill vacant county council seats.

O’Malley said he would discuss the idea of holding a special general election with the county executives in Prince George’s and Montgomery, because the counties would have to bear the cost of an election.

Activist and lawyer Donna Edwards beat Wynn by 22 percentage points in the Feb. 13 primary, and she is favored to win the November general election in the heavily Democratic district.

Wynn’s term runs through January 2009.

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WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s crushing losses in Maryland and Virginia highlight an erosion in what had been solid advantages among women, whites and older and working-class voters. While this week’s results can be explained by those states’ relatively large numbers of blacks and well-educated residents — who tend to be Barack Obama supporters — her presidential campaign could be doomed if the trends continue.

Clinton is holding onto some of her supporters who are largely defined by race and often by level of education, such as low-income white workers and older white women, exit polls of voters show. She’s been losing other blocs, again stamped by personal characteristics, such as blacks, men and young people both black and white, and better-educated whites.

The latest defeats have slowed the one-time favorite’s political momentum at a bad time. With Obama winning eight straight contests and easily outdistancing her in money raising, she must now endure three weeks until primaries in Texas and Ohio that she hopes will resurrect her campaign.

Clinton’s losses have also enabled Obama to take a slight lead in their crucial fight for convention delegates. With 2,025 needed to clinch the nomination at the party’s Denver gathering in August, Obama has 1,275 delegates to Clinton’s 1,220, according to the latest count by The Associated Press.

Before this year’s presidential contests began, Obama was running consistently behind his rival in the polls. The Illinois senator was mostly attracting upper-echelon whites, young people and about half of black voters — resembling the coalitions that sealed defeat for past non-establishment Democratic candidates such as Gary Hart and Bill Bradley.

Things have changed since the voting has started, especially after bitter exchanges during the Clinton-Obama contest in South Carolina highlighted their racial differences and, subsequently, former Sen. John Edwards exited the race.

Now, virtually all blacks support Obama, significant since they make up about a fifth of Democratic voters overall.

And while last year’s polls showed Clinton leading among men, Obama now leads her among males by 11 percentage points, according to exit polls of voters in 20 competitive Democratic primaries.

Before Tuesday’s voting, the two were even among white males this year. Obama defeated her among that group by 18 percentage points in Virginia — his first win with white men in a Southern state — and they divided white men about equally in Maryland. Obama has done especially well with men who are college educated.

Tuesday’s voting highlighted the ground Clinton has lost with groups that have been strongholds of her support.
In both Virginia and Maryland, she got the backing of only about four in 10 women and three in 10 men. Obama narrowly edged her among whites in Virginia, while she won among Maryland whites by 10 points.

In each state, she got 45 percent of voters 65 and over, and just over one-third of people earning under $50,000 annually or with high school degrees or less.

At the same time, Obama won huge margins among blacks, young voters, higher-income and better-educated people, leaving Clinton nowhere to turn for support.

She had the misfortune of Democratic primaries in two states in which about one-third of voters were black and about two-thirds of voting whites were college-educated, exit polls showed. Both are unusually high numbers, an all-but inevitable recipe for Obama triumphs.

A closer look shows more about the voters Clinton was losing and keeping, and underscores the importance of race and education in the contest.

While Clinton lost among people making less than $50,000 annually, she got six in 10 votes from whites in both states making that amount. The same was true for people over age 65 and those with no more than high school degrees — she lost both groups overall, but was backed by about six in 10 whites in those categories.

Nationally, 54 percent of college-educated white men voting in Democratic primaries have supported Obama, compared with 33 percent of those without college degrees.

Maryland’s figures on Tuesday were virtually identical to that, while in Virginia 62 percent of college-educated white men backed Obama, compared with 48 percent who are not graduates.

The figures from Tuesday’s voting came from an exit poll conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International in 30 precincts each in Maryland and Virginia for the AP and television networks.

Those interviewed included 1,245 Democrats in Virginia and 1,324 in Maryland, with a margin of sampling error for each of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Also, 719 Virginia Republicans and 690 in Maryland were interviewed, with sampling error margins of 5 points for Virginia and 6 points for Maryland. Margins of sampling error for subgroups were larger.

National figures come from earlier exit polls conducted by the two companies.