Your explanation is accurate, but your undercutting the importance of the statement. If you don't have the power, then you don't "let people" do anything.

Which is to say, he was contemplating being a giant a****** and pressuring them to vote the way he wanted, but he decided to use common sense, to not be a jerk, and now he's asking for a prize for doing what most of us do all the time everyday.

This doesn't make him a horrible human being, but it certainly doesn't make him a good one. In his mind, special rules apply only to him.