Success Quote by Meg Whitman

“Strangling” is a deliberately physical verb for an argument that’s really about paperwork. Whitman’s line takes a familiar pro-business complaint and turns it into a life-or-death melodrama: regulation isn’t an annoyance, it’s hands around the throat. That image does two things at once. It casts businesses as victims (including the sympathetic “all sizes,” a nod to mom-and-pop shops as much as corporate giants) and it frames government as an unfeeling aggressor rather than a referee balancing competing public interests.

The promise to “streamline” is the tell. It’s a soft-edged verb that sounds managerial, not ideological. Whitman isn’t saying “abolish” or “gut” regulations; she’s presenting herself as the competent executive who will run the state like a company, remove friction, and get everyone back to “easy.” The subtext is that California’s economic dynamism is being held back not by market cycles, inequality, or industry shifts, but by bureaucratic overreach - a narrative that conveniently positions a CEO as the antidote.

Context matters: Whitman’s politics were forged in the Silicon Valley/venture-capital worldview where speed is virtue and delay is failure. In California, where environmental rules, labor protections, and zoning fights are central to daily life, “easy to do business” doubles as a coded invitation to rebalance power away from regulators and toward employers and developers. The line works because it offers a simple villain and a simple fix, wrapped in executive competence.