MORE ON POTENTIAL FOR ROMNEY 2016 — A senior Republican who has met with Mitt Romney describes the 2012 GOP nominee’s pitch to Wall Street donors in recent meetings this way: “He tells people not to commit to a candidate that is not their first choice and that they aren’t excited about. He does not think much of the current field and does not think it is jelling. He still views himself as the leader of the establishment wing of the Republican Party.

“It’s definitely a change in his message [tilted more toward running].” The Republican added that Romney’s decision does not depend on whether or not Jeb Bush gets in. “He does not feel he owes the Bushes anything and does not think Jeb is the defacto leader of the establishment GOP.”

WELCOME TO JOBS DAY — S&P’s Beth Ann Bovino: “While we expect another number above 200,000, the slightly softer than expected ADP reading and the bad weather for the month adds some downside risk to our forecast of 225,000 for November. We also expect the unemployment rate to hold steady at 5.8%.” 

Moody’s Mark Zandi emails: “Payroll employment will increase by 220,000 jobs and the unemployment rate will decline to 5.7 percent. Average hourly earnings will increase by 0.2 percent, and labor force participation will hold steady at 62.8%. … Job growth is remarkably stable and strong. More job openings and an increasing quit rate are very positive leading indicators for future job growth. …

“At the current pace of job growth, unemployment and underemployment will decline by close to .75 percentage points per annum, even assuming stable labor force participation. Given that there is an estimated 1.25 percentage points of slack in the labor market, the economy will be back to full employment by mid-2016.”

WHY IS THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPPING? — Wells Capital’s Jim Paulsen: “Our own view is the rapidly declining unemployment rate in the face of continued modest economic growth is mainly due to aging demographics and a very slow growing working age population (i.e., slow growing labor supply).”

NUMBER COULD BE ANYTHING — Pantheon’s Ian Shepherdson: “We often have quite strong views on the balance of risks in the monthly payroll numbers. November is not one of those months. We can generate plausible forecasts between about 50K and 370K, and that’s much too wide for comfort. This is probably a payroll release to sit out.”

Lee Sachs on current economic team:

DOES ADMINISTRATION NEED A MARKETS PERSON? — Investment banker and former Clinton administration Treasury official Lee Sachs told Bloomberg TV: “If you look at who is around that table now — and they're all excellent, but they all have either academic backgrounds or government backgrounds, for the most part. Actually, the thing that is missing today is someone with finance or markets background."

PROTESTS CONTINUE — Capital New York’s Conor Skelding: “For the second night in a row, protesters angered over the Eric Garner decision blocked traffic along the West Side Highway Thursday evening after failing to ‘shut down’ One Police Plaza and the Brooklyn Bridge. Hundreds gathered at Foley Square … Dozens of officers tried unsuccessfully to stop the demonstrators as they marched north along the highway. After protesters circumvented them, the officers retreated and regrouped farther uptown, at 11th Street.

“There, between about 8 and 8:45 p.m., protesters and police remained in a stand-off. Some in the crowd taunted police and several were arrested. Police repeated their order to that protestors leave the roadway, to jeers. Eventually police forced the crowd back onto the sidewalk with their batons. One officer pushed a woman who was shining a cell-phone light in his eyes and taunting him.”

THIS MORNING ON POLITICO PRO FINANCIAL SERVICES – Zachary Warmbrodt with the latest on the emerging terrorism risk insurance deal [http://politico.pro/1zWMlK0]… Patrick Temple-West and Jon Prior on what the financial services industry and homeowners are getting in the tax extenders package [http://politico.pro/1wA8fVU] … For Pro's subscriber-only coverage — and to get Morning Money every day before 6 a.m. — please contact Pro Services at (703) 341-4600 or info@politicopro.com.

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING — M.M. is on CNBC’s Squawk Box at 6:50 a.m. to talk about the possibility that Romney runs in 2016.

** A message from the American Bankers Association: America’s hometown bankers help their customers realize their dreams. By providing secure and convenient access to money, we contribute to the economic growth, health, and vitality of communities across the nation. http://www.aba.com/Engagement/Pages/default.aspx **

DRIVING THE DAY — President Obama this morning intends to nominate Ashton Carter as the next Defense secretary and will later meet with King Abdullah II of Jordan … Deputy Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin this morning will meet with the Federal Advisory Council, a group of twelve bank CEOs representing each of the Federal Reserve’s districts, for a discussion on the state of the economy … Jobs report at 8:30 a.m. expected to show a gain of 230K and 0.1% dip in the jobless rate to 5.7%. Wages are expected to rise 0.2% once again … Int’l trade at 8:30 a.m. expected to show deficit of $41B … Factory orders at 10:00 a.m. expected to dip by 0.2% … Consumer credit at 3 p.m. expected to expand by $16.4B.

MEDIA BLAST: HUGE SHAKEUP AT TNR — POLITICO’s Dylan Byers: “[T]he venerable Washington institution announced it is shifting its headquarters to New York, amid a shakeup that saw the resignation of its highest editors and promised to redefine the identity of a century-old institution that once served as liberalism’s leading voice. Franklin Foer, the top editor, sent a memo to staff in the afternoon announcing that he would be quitting due to differences of vision with the magazine’s owner, Chris Hughes, a 31-year-old Facebook co-founder who bought the magazine in 2012 and now aspires to reposition it as a “digital media company.”

“The move came, sources said, after Foer discovered that Hughes had already hired his replacement, Gabriel Snyder, a Bloomberg Media editor who formerly ran The Atlantic Wire blog. … In an impromptu address at the magazine’s office in Washington, Leon Wieseltier also told staff that he would be quitting after 31 years as literary editor. … Several members of The New Republic’s staff are now planning to show up at the magazine’s offices on Friday and resign, sources with knowledge of the staffers’ plans told POLITICO.

“Guy Vidra, the magazine’s newly appointed chief executive, will hold a staff-wide meeting at 10 a.m. on Friday. The New Republic will continue to maintain a D.C. office, but be based primarily in New York. It will also cut its publication frequency in half, publishing just 10 print issues a year. Vidra announced those changes in a memo to staff following Foer’s resignation.” http://politi.co/1ytuVGM

YOHO GOES YOLO — POLITICO’s Jake Sherman and Seung Min Kim: “As Republicans searched for a way to demonstrate their outrage with … Obama’s unilateral move on immigration, the solution galloped in: a bill from Florida Rep. Ted Yoho, an obscure back-bencher and large-animal vet. Yoho’s quixotic bill, which nullifies Obama’s immigration actions, might help avoid a government shutdown on Dec. 11. The House narrowly passed it Thursday, and while the Senate doesn’t plan to act on it and Obama has vowed to veto it, Republican leadership hopes the vote defuses enough conservative anger at Obama that the conference can pass a funding bill next week without immigration language …

“So at the center of the immigration storm now stands a man who never held elective office before last year and ran his campaign out of a backyard shack, a tea party congressman who would almost certainly have found himself standing on the sidelines if he hadn’t filed his bill when he did. … After Yoho, a reliable conservative with scant legislative achievements to his name, presented the bill to Scalise’s whip team, and it ended up on a list of options in Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office. It made its way through leadership, eventually getting the stamp of approval from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).” http://politi.co/1ylqKxT

UBER VALUED AT $41 BILLION — WSJ’s Douglas Macmillan, Sam Schechner and Lisa Fleisher: “Ride-sharing service Uber Technologies Inc. said … a new round of funding valued it at $41 billion, a bet by some of the world’s top investors the firm can sustain a breakneck global expansion pace despite fierce challenges from regulators and taxi companies. The San Francisco-based company collected $1.2 billion that enables it to expand its workforce, lure new drivers, test a delivery service and subsidize prices in some of the 250 cities around the world where it operates. The closely held company has raised eight times as much as its closest ride-sharing rival, Lyft Inc.

“The funding is a vote of confidence in Travis Kalanick, Uber’s co-founder and chief executive whose brash personality has courted controversy. A recent privacy scandal stirred by one of Mr. Kalanick’s deputies appeared not to faze investors focused on Uber’s business prospects. Uber is now valued at $41.2 billion, easily the highest for any private startup now backed by venture capitalists, and above the market capitalizations of publicly traded companies including Delta Air Lines Inc., Charles Schwab Corp, Salesforce.com Inc. and Kraft Foods Group Inc.” http://on.wsj.com/1rVLBX9

DRAGHI PROMISES TO DELIVER — FT’s Claire Jones: “Mario Draghi, European Central Bank president, has maintained he can deliver fresh measures to stave off economic stagnation in the eurozone next year, despite renewed signs of tensions between policy makers … Rivalries between governing council members were reopened on Thursday, after splits emerged over a slight toughening-up of the language on plans to swell the ECB’s balance sheet by €1tn. … The ECB strengthened its forward guidance by saying the central bank ‘intends’ to expand its balance sheet to around €3tn to boost inflation, rather than simply ‘expecting’ to meet this objective.

“But the semantic change was not unanimous, with dissent coming from members of the executive board of ECB officials, as well as some national central bank governors. The disagreement happened despite staff economists slashing their forecasts for growth and inflation … The council was in agreement, however, that if lower oil prices began to threaten the outlook for inflation, or its existing measures disappointed, then more radical easing was warranted.” http://on.ft.com/1pZWvK5

BERNSTEIN BACKS WEISS — Jared Bernstein blogs: “I have a passing relationship with [Antonio] Weiss, and long-time readers of my blog have actually been exposed to his work: he co-authored this Center for American Progress tax reform plan that I praised in various posts. It raised significant revenue from both the wealthy … The under-secretary for domestic finance has to manage the nation’s debt, which last I checked was over $12 trillion, over 70 percent of GDP …

“That means he’ll spend his time working with investors, dealers in Treasury securities, and the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee to assess investor demand and make sure our auctions of Treasury securities most efficiently meet the demand. He’ll be busy creating 12-month forecasts of cash flows and debt levels for the U.S. government. And if Congressional renegades get jiggy with the debt ceiling, it’s on him to manage the available borrowing room .. It is thus essential to have a person in that position who has hands-on experience in global finance.” http://bit.ly/1yZfyG0

WILLIAM COHAN DOES TOO — William D. Cohan in an NYT post: “As Senator Warren should know well, it is more than a little ridiculous to tar and feather anyone and everyone who has ever worked on Wall Street. During her brief unconfirmed reign atop the [CFPB] … among her first hirings were five people with Wall Street or financial services experience. For instance, Catherine West, the agency’s chief operating officer, was previously president of Capital One. Raj Date, the first deputy director, and Elizabeth Vale, who was named assistant director for community banks and credit unions, previously worked as managing directors at Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, respectively.” http://nyti.ms/1FWpdPV

** A message from the American Bankers Association: America’s hometown bankers help their customers realize their dreams. By providing secure and convenient access to money, we contribute to the economic growth, health, and vitality of communities across the nation. http://www.aba.com/Engagement/Pages/default.aspx **