Elected officials are not the only ones eyeing Rep. Charlie Rangel’s congressional seat. Joyce Johnson, a 2005 candidate for City Council and 2002 candidate for Assembly, says she is ready to run too.

And she says given the current political climate, she has a strength that the rest of the candidates being discussed lack.

“In today’s life, I’m glad I was not elected. Because I was not elected, I was doing good work,” Johnson said Thursday. “It’s like a job interview. My background and my history gives voters the reason to believe that I can be a good congressperson. The only path to that is not necessarily elected office.”

Johnson said being in Congress has been a lifelong dream, and one she believes she can realize this year.

Johnson declined to answer directly whether she would be ready to run against Rangel, but, she said, primaries strengthened the party.

“What is wrong with our Democratic Party and our political system is that it’s now the worst thing in the world to run against someone. There was a time when we went to the people and we said, ‘Let them decide,’” she said. “It is good for our country, good for our democracy and never more clear than now that they should stand the public scrutiny in competition with someone.”

Johnson painted herself as a candidate independent of the political establishment, like Barack Obama or Michael Bloomberg, whom she supported for re-election last year. A 17-year veteran of beverage giant Seagram’s, where she served as the national director of equal employment opportunity, Johnson made the transition to government and politics, working over the years for Geraldine Ferraro, Alan Hevesi, C. Virginia Fields and Charlie King. She was the New York field director for the Obama campaign, and most recently, the president/CEO of the Black Equity Alliance.

Johnson ran for office twice before, in 2002 for Assembly in the primary won by Danny O’Donnell and in 2005 for City Council in the primary won by Melissa Mark-Viverito, whom Rangel himself endorsed over Johnson in that race.

O’Donnell has already expressed his own interest in running for Rangel’s seat, and Mark-Viverito is believed to be a potential candidate as well.

Johnson, who as of now appears to be the only African-American woman in the active mix for the seat, rejected the idea that she would lack a base of support from not currently being in office herself.

“I think I have a base of voters. I ran for office,” she said. “Just because you’re not elected, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a base.”

As to whether she had financial commitments from donors, Johnson said, “not officially,” though adding that she believes she will raise the money to be competitive.

And she thinks the new connections she has made since running her last race, particularly through her work for the Obama campaign, make her a stronger candidate than before.