LEVIN: Our voters, our Democrats, want to be relevant, and they want to be heard. They want an equal shot at this process, and that is all inspiring. ... What's at stake here is nothing less than a struggle for political equality and for political relevance. That's what the issue is here, whether or not this party is going to be open enough so that we can tell the public out there, tell the potential voters and current voters that we hear what you want, which is to be relevant, to be heard, and not to be irrelevant and not to be ignored. And this party can make a major contribution to winning elections as well as to responding to that voter's need and that citizen's need to be relevant. We can't do it under the present system.

The present system simply does not respond to that need to give the American people a chance to be involved, to be heard on an equal basis. This is an egalitarian party. This is a party which is supposed to treat people equally, treat states equally, to treat voters equally and not to give disproportionate power to any person or any particular state. That's what we're all about. We call the Republicans the party of privilege. We're the party of the people. We've got to end the privilege which exists that two states have if we're going to live up, number one, to who we are as a party but also if we're going to open up this process to new voters, to people who feel left out and who can be attracted to the political process if they feel it's open, that it's reaching out, that it's not closed, that it doesn't give a preference to certain states or to certain individuals.