Politics & Power Quote by Peter Jennings

Jennings frames the act of voting as a diagnostic test for a country’s self-control. The question isn’t really about a “man” at all; it’s about what citizens are willing to reward: conviction, policy, or mood management. By stacking the options in threes, he makes the last clause feel like the trapdoor. “Where he stands on the issues” sounds concrete, civic, measurable. “How he makes the nation feel” is the seduction: politics as atmosphere, as therapy, as television.

That wording also carries Jennings’ professional fingerprint. As a broadcast journalist, he lived inside the machinery that turns candidates into emotional experiences. “Feel” is a quiet indictment of media-era democracy, where charisma and reassurance can eclipse governing competence, and where voters may confuse the relief of being comforted with the hard work of being led.

The subtext is skepticism about “values” talk. “What he stands for” can mean principle, but it can just as easily mean branding: slogans that flatter the audience’s identity. Jennings hints that elections are often a referendum on national anxiety, and candidates are graded less like legislators than like performers: who calms, who outrages, who projects strength on cue.

Contextually, it lands in the late-20th-century shift toward candidate-centered politics and image discipline, accelerated by 24-hour news and polling. Jennings isn’t scolding emotion out of public life; he’s warning about a democracy that confuses emotional satisfaction for accountability. The question forces the listener to pick a standard, then live with its consequences.