I read that as saying that the forum is for discussion of elections and electoral politics, and everything after “including” goes back to “discussion of elections and electoral politics.”
So, the last inclusion- “public figures”, doesn’t mean threads public figures in general are to be started in that forum, just threads about public figures as they relate to “discussion of elections and electoral politics.”
Some thread moves out of that forum indicate that some mods at least sometimes agree with that. For instance, below is a link to a thread titled “Most amazing/outlandish Trump facts” that was moved to IMHO with the following reasoning:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=860669
Another example, note my bolding:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=857989