Do you think that during run up to elections and similar we could have a topic for it and move anything from chat/AIBU into it automatically?
Just at the moment, I've got a suspicion that there's quite a number of posts that are done by activists rather than people genuinely wanting to talk about it. (mostly "JC is really quite nice, doesn't everyone really think so" type posts, but a few the other way)
If people are genuinely wanting to discuss such matters then they can go into that topic, but it would put activists off posting as it wouldn't be in the main topics.