All the sniping in the world between politicians never gets in the wayu of the losers accepting jobs from the winner, and the winner offering jobs to the losers, when that proves convenient. It's not quite shadow-boxing, but it tends to be closer to sparring than to a real fight.

Onlookers and bystanders and hangers on and outsiders take this kind of battling much more seriously than the actual participants. In all political systems (except those where they do actually kill each other, such as the Mafia - and even there they make deals.)