“ARE YOU in a good spot for hearing?” one woman asks another as they shuffle into a sitting room at a retirement home near Japantown in San Francisco. They fold their walkers and await Mark Farrell, a Democratic candidate for mayor in the city’s November elections. Mr Farrell launches into a typical stump speech—he grew up in San Francisco, is raising kids here—but the conversation quickly turns darker. What will he do about crime, homelessness and drugs, the grey-haired audience wants to know. Mr Farrell has an answer characteristic of liberal San Francisco’s changing politics. “We’re gonna bring them off the streets,” he says. “Hopefully it’s shelter, maybe it’s hospital, maybe it’s county jail.”