The ghosts of mayors past

David N. Dinkins and Rudolph W. Giuliani are not on the ballot in this year’s mayoral election.

But they haunt it, nonetheless.

Similar to the specters in Charles Dickens’s “Christmas Carol,” the two former mayors have been cast as the Ghosts of Mayors Past in this year’s contest, symbolizing how the city could be transformed should Bill de Blasio or Joseph J. Lhota take up residence in Gracie Mansion. Depending on your political point of view, that would mean a return to the bad old days of rampant crime, decrepitude and decay under Mr. de Blasio’s former boss, Mr. Dinkins, or those of tone-deaf authoritarianism and racial tension under Mr. Giuliani, who made Mr. Lhota his second in command....