brownie points

I don’t want to say this to try to get ideological brownie points, but the fact of the matter is there's nothing enormously brave about me, right?

If Attal can confound pollsters’ expectations and somehow pull off a majority for Macron’s centrist bloc in the June 30 and July 7 two-round election, not only will he earn brownie points from the French president, but he’ll also be in a stronger position to argue that he has the country’s ear and support.

Earlier, Naoto Nakahara, deputy consul general at the Japanese Consulate in Hong Kong, told Nikkei that the Hong Kong government was “trying to win brownie points from Beijing.”

The Washington Post also has an incentive to get brownie points from the administration now and then.

I think I muttered something about needing all the Brownie points in heaven I could get, and tried to just shrug it off.