“It’s the American economy that needs this rescue plan,” Obama told 12,000 millennials in a serious, impassioned tone.

For the first time, the Democratic presidential nominee explicitly hitched his ongoing argument about social change to the financial crisis, arguing that the nation must transcend its differences and unite behind the bailout.

It was his most dramatic economic address since the financial crisis began.  In contrast to the parsing that passed for policy leadership at last week’s first presidential debate, Obama emphatically advocated an urgent bailout, regardless of public opinion or partisan squabbling.

“To the Democrats and Republicans who opposed this plan yesterday, I say – step up to the plate and do what’s right for this country,” he told the crowd packed into the quad at the University of Nevada at Reno.

Then Obama offered a new narrative, one that many Americans may resist: He cast the bailout as another historic American achievement — a challenging but invigorating opportunity to come together for the common good.

“This country and the dream it represents are being tested in a way that we haven’t seen in nearly a century.  And future generations will judge ours by how we respond to this test,” he said. “Will they say that this was a time when America lost its way and its purpose?  When we allowed our own petty differences and broken politics to plunge this country into a dark and painful recession? Or will they say that this was another one of those moments when America overcame?  When we battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other’s success?”

By now, such rhetoric is familiar to the public: Obama’s knack for fusing the language of (progressive) movement organizing with (conservative) American exceptionalism.  Today, he took a risk by wrapping it around a deeply unpopular and complex measure that is widely seen as a sop for reckless elites. It was MLK meets CNBC.

“I believe that this is one of those moments. I know that many of you are anxious about your future and the future of this country,” Obama continued. “Despite all of this, I ask you to believe – believe in this country and your ability to change it.  I ask you what has been asked of the American people in times of trial and turmoil throughout our history – what was asked at the beginning of the greatest financial crisis this nation has ever endured.  In his first fireside chat, Franklin Roosevelt told his fellow Americans that “..there is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people themselves.  Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan.  Let us unite in banishing fear.  Together, we cannot fail.”

Obama channeled FDR’s era — the fear of depression and the promise of a populist agenda — to recast the bailout as a working-class imperative:

“America, together, we cannot fail.  Not now.  Not when we have a crisis to solve and an economy to save.  Not when there are so many Americans without jobs and without homes.  Not when there are families who can’t afford to see a doctor, or send their child to college, or pay their bills at the end of the month.  Not when there is a generation that is counting on us to give them the same opportunities and the same chances that we had for ourselves,” he said, his voice hitting the characteristic intensity that rounds out Big Speeches.

“Now is the time to make them proud of what we did here.  Let’s give our children the future they deserve, and let’s act with confidence and courage to show the world that at this moment, in this election, the United States of America is still the last, best hope of Earth.”

It was the kind of grand, sprawling argument that Obama makes better than most politicians alive — whether you agree with him or not.  Right now, most Americans don’t.

According to prepared remarks, Obama first stressed that a taxpayer-funded solution makes it imperative that the government help middle-class and poor citizens — not just troubled corporations:

We already know that the credit crisis that has emerged from our largest financial institutions is becoming a credit crunch for small business owners, homeowners and students seeking loans in big cities and small towns.

Now that American taxpayers are being called on to share in this new burden, we must take equally swift and serious action to help lift the burdens they face every day…. I ask Sen. McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families –- a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, spark job creation through repair of our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes and provide retooling assistance for America’s auto industry.

John McCain and I can continue to argue about our different economic agendas for next year, but we should come together now to work on what this country urgently needs this year.

Obama is essentially reiterating the need for the stimulus plan he already proposed — at $50 billion — which presents another contrast with McCain, who still opposes a stimulus.

Then Obama turned to a new regulatory structure, which he has already discussed several times this week:

[T]his plan must be temporary and coupled with tough new oversight and regulations of our financial institutions, and there must be a clear process to wind down this plan and restore private sector assets into private-sector hands after restoring stability to the system. Taxpayers must share in any upside benefit that such stability brings.

Obama concluded with some straight talk of his own — an indictment of of a Washington-Wall Street alliance that should resonate with many workers and voters disgusted with Congress:

One last point. We did not arrive at this crisis by some accident of history. What led us to this point was years and years of a philosophy in Washington and on Wall Street that viewed even common-sense regulation and oversight as unwise and unnecessary; that shredded consumer protections and loosened the rules of the road. CEOs and executives got reckless. Lobbyists got what they wanted. Politicians in both parties looked the other way until it was too late. And it is the American people who have paid the price. The events of this week have rendered a final verdict on that failed philosophy, and it will end if I am President of the United States.

With all the attack ads and horse-race coverage, it’s easy to start analyzing the financial crisis as another political development that can “help” or “hurt” the candidates. Turn to Obama’s actual words today, though, and you can see his emphasis on how he would try to help the actual people harmed by free market fundamentalism.

Today Obama heads to Flint, Mich., for an economic discussion at the regional technology center of a local community college.

Obama at a Chrystler plant on previous MI visit.

As Michael Moore documented almost 20 years ago, Flint is the kind of town that gets sold out by CEOs and neglected by politicians. The major job losses hit decades ago, but Flint’s population is still in free fall — it recently dropped 8 percent, to 114,000 people. Over the past three decades, the deciannual census counts show the population steadily dropped more than 10 percent.

Even as it thins out, this blue-collar base is essential to keeping Michigan blue. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry ran up his numbers to 60 percent in Genesse County, anchored by Flint, and eked by statewide at 51 percent. According to one report, Flint’s voters were rated the 10th most reliably liberal in the country — just behind San Francisco.

But Obama’s Michigan message is not all job losses and mortgage nightmares. The campaign will tap a local worker-turned-student, Jon Terbush, to kick off today’s event. Terbush, using money from a buyout after 12 years with American Axle, now is attending community college to brush up on technology and auto repair, according to a backgrounder from the campaign. Such voters have few reasons to re-up on Republican economics, as The New York Times explained today:

[T]he principal elements of Mr. McCain’s economic agenda on taxes, trade, regulation and health care follow the philosophic outlines of a deeply unpopular Bush administration. In offering new, immediate economic benefits, Mr. Obama has far outbid his Republican adversary… [Obama] has offered an ambitious range of proposals to arrest that decline and help average workers compete in a global economy.

Those proposals include a new tax credit of $500 per worker, or $1,000 for two-worker households; a new mortgage-interest credit, valued at an average of $500, for homeowners who do not itemize their tax deductions, and a college tuition subsidy of $4,000 per year for students who agree to perform community service. Mr. Obama would wipe out income taxes for older Americans earning $50,000 or less, saving some 7 million households an average of $1,400 apiece.

That’s on top of the still-unspecified subsidies Mr. Obama would provide for the purchase of health insurance for those who don’t now have it, the elimination of capital-gains taxes for small start-up businesses and an increase in the existing dependent-care tax credit that could save $1,100 for a single parent of two children who earns $40,000…

The Times reports that McCain, in contrast, is putting far less on the kitchen table:

By comparison, Mr. McCain’s list of proposals on this front is far more modest. He would double the existing child exemption to $7,000 from $3,500, but most tax-filers would not benefit because they have no dependent children or have incomes so modest that they already do not owe income taxes. Mr. McCain, of Arizona, would also offer a summer gas-tax holiday valued at about $30 a month.

Here on Obama’s plane, which is about to make the 40-minute hop from Chicago to Michigan, there’s little economic talk. Early this morning, Obama donned a White Sox cap and dropped off his daughters at their first day of school, then squeezed in a gym visit before boarding “O Force One.”

The schdeule promises a long day, with two events in Michigan and then a trip to Ohio — where Obama will continue to press for blue-collar support.