George Skelton | CAPITOL JOURNAL - Nuñez covers the issues, if not the magazines

SACRAMENTO — I screwed up.

Would Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez love to be on the cover of Time magazine? Sure. What politician wouldn't? But he never said it. I misquoted him Thursday.

In a jocular mood, Nuñez had sketched for reporters the similarities between himself and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Both are "eternal optimists," won't "back down from a fight" and "are committed to healthcare reform," the Los Angeles Democrat said.

And, he added, "we both want him to be on the cover of Time magazine."

Except I didn't catch the word "him." Maybe, deep down, I didn't want to. It's a better quote without the three-letter word. With it, Nuñez is implying that only Schwarzenegger -- not himself, too -- is being driven to dramatically expand state healthcare coverage, in part, by the lure of the national spotlight.

But we didn't need the speaker to tell us that. We've watched the governor take victory jaunts, across the nation and overseas, trumpeting his signing of Nuñez's landmark anti-global- warming bill last year. Schwarzenegger's pose balancing a globe on his finger filled a cover of Newsweek.

This year, the Democratic speaker is the Republican governor's main man on healthcare.

"I'll tell you what," Nuñez told me after Thursday's column ran, "if we do get fundamental healthcare reform and if we set the example for the rest of the country and Washington, D.C., then the governor would probably deserve being on the cover of Time magazine.

"Except this time," he continued, chuckling, "I might insist, you know, that I want to be at least in the background -- since, on global warming, it was heavy lifting getting that bill to him. All he had to do was sign it. And off he went like a rocket."

So Nuñez says he merely wants to be in the background of a cover shot.

That straightened out, I pressed the speaker about what's happening in the Legislature's "special sessions" on healthcare and water that the governor called with great ballyhoo nearly two weeks ago. It's difficult to tell because the Capitol is practically deserted. Many legislators are off on junkets. And those who aren't, if they're not leaders, aren't bothering to show up.

Healthcare, Nuñez says, "is not going to be easy, but I'm still optimistic."