Mara Gay, a New York Times editorial board member, hosted an online conversation with her fellow board member Brent Staples; Nicole Gelinas, a contributing Opinion writer; and Andrew Kirtzman, a former New York political journalist and the author of two biographies of Rudolph W. Giuliani, to talk about Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral run, his return after his resignation amid scandal (he has denied wrongdoing), the idea of crisis and stability and what it means that Democrats and American voters are now so willing to accept tarnished figures they previously rejected in one way or another.

Mara Gay: I have a big, pretty pressing question. How do the Democrats move on from the past? How do they put the November loss behind them and unite around a message that persuades voters and helps them compete against President Trump? How do they find new leaders? In Washington, Democrats chose Gerry Connolly of Virginia over the sharply talented Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as head of the House Oversight Committee, for instance. Now polls suggest the comeback that the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo is trying to make by running for mayor of New York City is popular with voters. Why are the Democrats holding onto the past so tightly? What’s happening here?

Andrew Kirtzman: To the extent there is a straight line between Cuomo and Connolly, it’s that both men are far more centrist than their competitors. New Yorkers in particular prefer their mayors to be pragmatists — only two ideological liberals have won the mayoralty in the modern era, David Dinkins and Bill de Blasio. One was a one-term mayor and the other left office deeply unpopular. But Cuomo enters the race under unique circumstances, in which the public is desperate for a leader who can get the place under control, and may be willing to overlook a lot to do so.

Brent Staples: New York Democrats are making a simple, if desperate, calculation: They want to jettison Eric Adams and put behind them the chaos he has visited upon Gotham. Andrew Cuomo is desperate to redeem the family name after he resigned — and prayerfully hoping to exploit the Trump effect. The president was elected even after a civil jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Not an ideal situation politically, but here we are.

Nicole Gelinas: I think that the Democrats are clinging to the past partly because, for the past decade or so, when the party, nationally and locally, would have been building the next generation of leaders, its progressive wing was in the ascendancy.

Gay: Which moderate Democrats didn’t really do — they swung back to veteran leaders like Joe Biden rather than build a new class as the left did with Ocasio-Cortez.