South Carolina AFL-CIO Leader Bashes a Nikki Haley Piñata in Video

In a video posted on YouTube May 20 by a woman named Bex Mix and tweeted by Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey, Donna DeWitt swings at the purple and black piñata with a baseball bat during a retirement party in her honor.

The video has disabled embedding, but can be watched HERE.

What I will say is that she looks like a tough ol' girl here, DeWitt says. A woman's voice off camera replies, Wait 'till the face come around and whack her!

As DeWitt swings the bat, onlookers cheers.

Tensions are high between the South Carolina governor and the state's AFL-CIO as Haley is strongly against organized labor. In her state of the state address in January, Haley blasted unions for being corrupt and detrimental to the state.

We don't have unions in South Carolina because we don't need unions in South Carolina, the Republican Haley said in the speech. Unions thrive in the dark. Secrecy is their greatest ally, sunlight their most potent adversary.

Even some Democrats, however, weren't thrilled with DeWitt's style of venting. Democratic strategist Tyler Jones told the West Ashley Path he thought it was totally inappropriate.

There is absolutely no place for this in politics. You don't need a bat to beat Nikki Haley, you just need a brain.

DeWitt told the National Journal's Katrina Trinko on Tuesday she has no regrets about the piñata or the video.

As you can see, I'm not vicious, I'm not hateful, DeWitt reportedly said. I think if we'd had a donkey and played pin the tail on the donkey with her face on it, I guess, it's a children's game and I guess people would have gotten upset about that. There was certainly no viciousness. It was all in fun. Although she has bashed unions for some time.