Yep, just another sign of his naivety. He actually believed Bozo would keep his work about taking public funding. I saw that as a trap as soon as the news came out. I couldn't believe he didn't see through that ploy. Even after that he insisted on "taking the high road". His stupidity cost him the election, including his voting for the bailout, one of his biggest mistakes.
Reminds me of when the original President Bush went along with the Dems in an apparent attempt to be a genuine statesman, in the sense of honorable compromise, to support a tax increase. (After having publicly and emphatically saying “Read my lips...”) Then when the next election came around, they gave him no credit for being a “cross the aisle” kind of guy, but bashed him about the head and shoulders with his broken “read my lips” promise. I’m confident that at the time he thought the result would be good and that the Dems would be nice because he was nice.