The Best Political Twitter Fights of 2014

At the center of every good political feud is the sense that the participants are being more than a little petty and immature. Politicians (and their staffers) are generally guarded, scripted, and boring, but when David Axelrod subtweets Hillary Clinton or Rand Paul tweets that Marco Rubio wants to build a moat, it’s the political equivalent of a pretty good episode of The Real Housewives.

Like reality television, political feuds are mostly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and generate a lot more attention (clicks) than they may deserve. But they’re fun to watch, especially when they play out on Twitter, where people tend to choose their words less carefully.