That Losing Look

Being Miss Universe was never enough for Irene Saez of Venezuela. She later won acclaim as mayor of Chacao - where she cut crime, slashed budget deficits and spruced up public plazas - and was re-elected with a record 96 percent of the vote. Then she set her sights higher, and for a long time, it looked like the 6-foot-1-inch strawberry blonde might be the first woman to become president of Venezuela. But with that country’s presidential election less than two weeks away, the 36-year-old Saez’s once soaring campaign is imploding. Sugary slogans, chaos among her staff and an alliance with a discredited political party have sent her plummeting from first place to fourth in the polls.