In April, 2010 GEICO fired Lance Baxter aka D.C. Douglas for calling Tea Party members "retarded". He stupidly left that message on the answering service of FreedomWorks, along with his name and phone number. There was enough outrage that he was fired. I explained in a post back then the reasons why this might happen:
When you represent a product, even if it's just your voice, you're the face (or voice, in this case) of that company, and anything you do reflects on said company. You certainly don't want to make them look bad, and you definitely do not go around acting badly without suffering the consequences. Not necessarily because the company disagrees with your actions, but there are enough people in this country who might, and they'll have your ass.
Yes, it's censorship, but it's their product, and ultimately their right to censure those who 'represent' their product, even if that means firing.
Jump ahead 2 years, and we discover GEICO fired someone else for being political, but this time it was a conservative. According to drill sergeant Lee Ermey- of "Full Metal Jacket" fame- he told TMZ that he was fired for criticizing Obama (see video below). He claims he apologized but that wasn't enough. He then went on to say that:
Yeah, that's very true, but in this case I think it was simply the bottom line.
"If you're a conservative in this town, you better watch out."
If you want to be a spokesperson or represent a particular 'product', you need to keep your mouth shut about politics.
H/T The Blaze, TMZ
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