Not at all. Actually, observing how it works for realities or the gossipverse, you can spot the same patterns in politics: multiple (in USA "both") sides on some topic cluster their statements around some event, like passing of some act or relevant news.

Setting the conversation agenda is specially useful to hide inconvenient topics from public scrutiny. Sex regulation, religion and other "social" controversial discussions are very effective to create noise and put in the background the economic problems, that have often more direct and severe consequences for most people.