The numbers, which have been closely followed in political circles, showed unemployment rising to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent last month, hitting the average estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. In a separate Bloomberg survey, economists estimated the U.S. would gain 125,000 jobs after adding 114,000 jobs last month.

While the jobs report has been overshadowed in recent days by the storm that rocked the East Coast, halting U.S. markets for two days and raising the specter of a delayed report, job stats have been a focal point amid a presidential campaign that has often focused on the slow pace of recovery in the U.S. economy.

Last month, after the unemployment rate dipped below 8 percent for the first time since 2009, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch questioned the validity of the numbers on Twitter, implying that the numbers had been doctored by the federal government to aid President Obama's re-election campaign.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised the non-farm payroll jobs gained in September upward to 148,000, from 114,000, and said that Hurricane Sandy didn't have a material affect on this month's report.

Mr. Welch has yet to tweet on the October job numbers.

Elsewhere on Wall Street:

Royal Bank of Scotland said it would probably face fines over charges it manipulated inter-bank lending rates such as Libor.

The eight "systemically important" U.S. banks: Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo.

America's midsize banks, including U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial, are opening their own lobbying shops, according to Bloomberg, in a nod to their differing imperatives from larger Wall Street banks.

Rhode Island is suing Barclays, Wells Fargo and former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling over inadequate disclosures pertaining to a $75 million loan the state facilitated for Mr. Schilling's video game company, 38 Studios.

"What can we make of this Barclays FERC thing? Besides, like, ha ha ha Barclays you sure like manipulating things?"

Market Folly has notes on David Einhorn's Iron Ore short idea.

The Times’sPeter Lattman on the Bruce-Bharara Bromance: "Before ripping into “Death to My Hometown,” a rollicking Celtic-inspired anthem, Mr. Springsteen shouted, “This is for Preet Bharara!” (Mr. Springsteen name-checks Mr. Bharara a YouTube clip about 22 seconds in.)"

Clinton also sent her husband, who arguably has as much star power as Oprah, to South Carolina. In New Hampshire, the Clinton team dispatched the former secretary of the Navy to deliver a speech in Portsmouth.

The New York Times Magazine published a long profile exploring Hillary’s sometimes opaque emotional landscape, while the Washington Post considered her early life.

In a column this morning, Dan Balz wrote of the Clinton candidacy, "all talk of inevitability is gone," and added that no one knows this better than the candidate herself.

Hillary is still swinging this weekend, with a positive message about fresh starts. She was quoted in the Des Moines Register saying she thinks "Clinton II will be better than Clinton I."

The campaign also launched a new ad, "New Beginning," which argues against the idea that a second Clinton presidency would be dynastic.

In a pretty successful weekend for the Obama campaign, Oprah predictably went over well with audiences. Obama also took the cover of the Weekly Standard, penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, and struck back at Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who had criticized the candidates' health care plan.

An unexpected critique of Obama came from Civil Rights Movement icon Andrew Young, who said he'd like to see Obama be president, but not until 2016. He also added that Bill Clinton is "every bit as black as Barack." (Nothing on how black Hillary is, though).

On language, John Edwards became the third member of a Democratic campaign to use some variant of the word "silly" to describe an element of the race.

The news for the Republican candidates was focused on Mike Huckabee, who Frank Rich thinks is the Republicans’ Obama. Today, the Washington Post notes what is now fairly evident: that Huckabee is under attack after a meteoric rise to the top of the polls.

The most shattering story for the former Arkansas governor is an AP report about Huckabee's record on A.I.D.S., which says he once promoted isolating patients from the public, opposed federal funding for research and said homosexuality is a health risk. This report may truly hurt his candidacy, not because it is necessarily any more controversial than releasing a convicted rapist, but because it runs contrary to his message of tolerance. Before this, Huckabee has managed to seem conservative, but kind.

In other Republican news, Curt Schilling appeared in an ad for John McCain.

And Salena Zito says, "Campaign strategists for four candidates--Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and John McCain--can sit down straight-faced, without spin, and outline a plausible scenario for how their guy can win the nomination."

The Daily News reports that Rudy Giuliani was asked if the N.Y.P.D. had provided security to his mistress before their affair was public, and replied, "Thank you."

On what many pundits considered to be a seminal appearance on Meet the Press, Giuliani said of Giuliani Partners that he would disclose only what is "absolutely required." He also said of homosexuality that, "It's the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the orientation that they have." (End of article).

Despite Giuliani being pressed on nearly every issue sensitive to his campaign, Jonathan Martin's verdict is that he passed Tim Russert's test

In New York state, some of Eliot Spitzer’s recent policy proposals got a closer look in the weekend press.

Liz reports three appointments Spitzer made late Friday, two of which will require confirmation from the Senate. Peter Donahue relays that Sheldon Silver spoke relatively kindly of the governor when addressing the U.F.T. about postponing fare hikes.

Phil Anderson starts to go through the documents on Spitzer's universal broadband internet plan. The Post reports the governor has ordered an investigation of the Waterfront Commission.

They also run the numbers, and discover that his administration is paroling at twice the rate of the last year George Pataki was governor.

Other news:

A Court of Appeals is going to review the case Debbie Almontaser lost.

A Georgia gun dealer is counter-suing Michael Bloomberg for what the seller deems was an unfair sting.

The second-largest landowner in Coney Island is considering selling property to contribute to realizing the mayor's plan for the area.

The Atlantic Yards Report experiemented with Andrew Cuomo's new Project Sunlight.

Two Republicans dropped out from considering a New Jersey congressional run for Jim Saxton's seat, putting their support behind Lockheed Martin vice president Chris Myers.

David Seifman reported that the outspoken anti-congestion-pricing lobbyist Richard Lipsky was caught parked illegally near City Hall with a placard on his car that read "Active Firefighter."

There's a congestion pricing panel at the New School tomorrow.

And pictured above are Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and Dorothy Rodham breakfasting at Palmer's Deli and Market in Des Moines, Iowa.

But last night’s game, a 4-3 series-deciding win for the Yankees, was about reaching back to the past, with heavy implications for the upcoming postseason.

For most of the game, the scoreline indicated a vintage duel between future Hall of Fame pitchers Roger Clemens, 45, and Curt Schilling, 40. But neither was in vintage form.

Clemens, who hadn’t pitched since September 3, needed to show both effectiveness and health to hold off 21-year-old Philip Hughes (and possibly 22-year-old Ian Kennedy) in the Yankees’ likely postseason rotation, behind stalwarts Andy Pettitte and Chien-Ming Wang.

Curt Schilling, meanwhile, needed to continue his largely successful reinvention as a pure control pitcher to assure him a Game 2 start behind Cy Young candidate Josh Beckett.

Schilling went to work with his balanced arsenal right away, mixing the low-90s fastball with a big curve at around 73-75 MPH, and a low-80s changeup. (His uses his fearsome splitter far less frequently now , and his fastball is not only slower, but far less lively. His strikeout rate, just 6.1 per 9 innings--his lowest since 1992--shows it.)

Still, he managed to get Bobby Abreu to swing and miss at the curve, then at the fastball up to earn a strikeout in the first inning. It would be his last strikeout until the eighth inning.

Clemens, meanwhile, immediately displayed the ill effects of his layoff. His first three pitches were balls to Ellsbury, who reached on an error by Johnny Damon. Clemens threw the first of many sliders up in the zone—that is to say, sliders that didn’t slide—to Pedroia, who took it, then flew out. He threw five straight balls to David Ortiz, including a 3-0 pitch that Ortiz hacked at—another slider up. Mike Lowell singled in a run, J.D. Drew flew out (it seems to be his specialty) and after a fastball to get ahead of Jason Varitek 0-1, Clemens left a slider up on the inner half of the plate. Varitek ripped it down the first base line, and the Yankees would have been in a 3-0 hole if Doug Mientkiewicz hadn’t made Joe Torre look like a genius for playing a .225 hitter at first base, robbing Varitek of the certain double.

The game continued to follow this pattern. Schilling threw an ungodly amount of strikes. He showed mastery of his pitches, throwing the fastball, curve and change all for strikes. It took him until the eighth inning to throw 20 pitches for balls. But his put-away pitches of old, the splitter and the 98 MPH fastball, were scarcely seen. He threw the splitter with two strikes just once, on a full count to Melky Cabrera leading off the eighth inning, and the fastball topped out at 92 for most of the night, until a 95 MPH offering in his final at bat of the night.

Meanwhile, even though Clemens appeared to settle down, based on the results, his night was really a journey of self-discovery with a brief spurt of dominance in the middle. The second inning is a great example. The results were: groundout by Eric Hinske (on a slider left over the heart of the plate), flyout by Coco Crisp (on a fastball down the middle, though at least it reached 94), a five-pitch walk to Julio Lugo, and a rookie, Ellsbury, ignoring his struggles and jumping on the first pitch, grounding out to first.

True to form, Clemens found a way to make it work, finding his rhythm over four batters in the third and fourth innings. With one out in the third, he set David Ortiz up with a hard slider, then got him up on a fastball. Mike Lowell foul-tipped a fastball into Jose Molina’s glove. Clemens came back from a 3-1 count to blow two fastballs past J.D. Drew. And he struck out Jason Varitek, after having let the count get to 2-2 with another 86-MPH slider that simply didn’t move much. (On the ESPN broadcast, they deferred to Clemens, calling it a small slider.)

But by the fifth inning, Clemens was no longer working with a deficit. Robinson Cano led off the top of the fifth with a home run just over the Green Monster. Not surprisingly, it came on a pitch Schilling tried to throw past Cano up in the zone—at 88 MPH. But Schilling went on to retire the next nine in a row, essentially abandoning the change and simply throwing the curve and the fastball, which often dipped into 86-88 range, for strikes.

Clemens, meanwhile, couldn’t throw anything but his fastball for strikes by the sixth inning. Pedroia flew out on the third straight heater, but Ortiz didn’t bother chasing some bad sliders and walked, and Lowell simply waited for a fastball, then singled to right. Then the normally patient Drew picked the very worst time to swing at the first pitch, with men on against a tired pitcher with control issues, and grounded into a force at second. As Chamberlain warmed in the bullpen, Clemens got his last bit of good fortune on a 1-1 slider he left up and in the middle of the plate. Varitek flew out.

Clemens has succeeded, but not without struggling throughout for command. Part of it may have been the 13-day layoff. But the extra juice on his fastball was probably also a result of his extra rest. If the velocity stays while the command returns in his next two starts, the Yankees have the Rocket back. But if the velocity returns to his 2007 norm of 90-91 for the fastball, and he has no other pitches he can locate, the Clemens that has struggled since the All Star break could be problematic in an ALDS start.

Schilling’s ultimate moment came in far more humiliating fashion, of course. He started the eighth by falling behind Cabrera 3-1, before reaching back for a 92 MPH fastball in, followed by his splitter to get strikeout number two on the night.

But that something extra he reached for was near the last of his reserves. In the next at bat, Mientkiewicz lined an 0-1 half-fastball, half-changeup (84 MPH) into left for his second hit of the night (making Joe Torre look like a genius for employing a first baseman now hitting .235), and Jason Giambi reached up for a 92 MPH fastball and smashed it off the top of the Green Monster.

Schilling came back to jam Johnny Damon, getting a first-pitch groundout.

That brought Derek Jeter to the plate. Schilling started him with another perfectly-placed pitch, an 86-MPH fastball just off the outside corner, getting Jeter to swing and miss. Briefly, a flash of old Schilling reappeared with a 94-MPH fastball, his hottest of the game. But this time, location, rather than speed, showed Schilling’s age—it fell harmlessly into the catcher’s glove, well outside, as did the following pitch at 93.

That was about all Schilling had left. Jeter timed an 84-MPH fastball on the outside corner, an 85-MPH on the inside corner, then when Schilling tried to get him upstairs, without the necessary oomph, Jeter launched his pitch deep into the Green Monster seats.

The Yankees led 4-1, Schilling’s night was over, and both Boston and New York had to be asking questions about what their once-great pitchers will have left for the postseason.