I am not sure that Barack Obama actually said "equality." But in his wide-ranging and sober interview with the Wall Street Journal (published this morning) Obama did assert that, as his questioners reported, "the widening gap between winners and losers in the U.S. economy" had to be narrowed. In conversations with me and with others, he emphasized that the social contract that had kept America (and Americans) together was fraying, actually being torn apart.
Obama was open to cutting corporate taxes but only when and if the system itself is rationalized and does not result in goodies for those who lobby the congress best.
His emphasis is on energy policy where he would intervene much more than John McCain, and he also alluded to the taboo word among liberals, "nuclear power." That is actually brave in our party.
I've not seen a better parsing of Obama on the economic dilemmas the country faces.