I am utterly convinced that the major driver in politics is the price of gasoline

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Correlated To Fuel

Shipping costs, warehousing costs, and production of food products are all influenced by fuel costs, especially the first.
So, consumer goods all have upward price pressure.
Sure, some goods may be more expensive to produce right now, (but most of the reported financial reasons are pretty flimsy), but the high fuel costs compound things.
Normally inflation doesn't include fuel cost for this very reason. Consumer prices are autocorrelated to fuel so economists like to leave that out. Actually, finding that degree of autocorrelation is pretty easy, so correcting figures for "double counting" isn't that hard. The economics community has been lazy & negligent in this area for decades.