A successful school-board recall punishes left-wing excess

CLAD IN HIS bright yellow campaign shirt, Kit Lam and his fellow supporters of the effort to recall three members of the San Francisco Board of Education fanned out across Chinatown. They were making a final election-day push, eagerly speaking in Mandarin and Cantonese to passers-by. “We are going to win today, and it won’t be close,” says Mr Lam. He soon proved his chops as a pundit as well as a campaigner. The three commissioners—Alison Collins, Gabriela López and Faauuga Moliga—were soundly defeated on February 15th. It is the city’s first successful recall campaign since 1914.