The themes of “class warfare” and “elitism” regularly splatter political discourse these days as presidential and congressional candidates grapple for momentum and probe opponents for vulnerabilities.

Whether it’s donning a flannel shirt to campaign in Maine, riding across the Great Plains in a pickup truck, discrediting what’s taught at American colleges or putting down wine and cheese, those who aspire to win the highest offices in the land wrap themselves in the symbolic trappings of everyday America to demonstrate their kinship to the common folk.

All of the Republican presidential candidates have tried out variations of the “ I’m just like you” stump speech, altering the message to appeal to specific segments of the electorate most likely to deliver the requisite number of delegates or media “sound bite” momentum builders prescribed for that day by campaign spin doctors.

The elitism drivel dribbled into Maine this week when newly announced U. S. Senate candidate Angus King responded to a Bangor Daily News reporter’s question about past criticisms of his alleged distance from the masses by saying, “I don’t drink wine, I don’t know what brie is, I bowl every Thursday night and my idea of fun is to go RVing.”

As you move forward with your campaign, Angus, here’s a message from those of us for whom ownership of an RV is as far-removed as piloting a private jet and who duct-tape together 1999 Subarus to get to and from work: We don’t care about your snacking and recreational preferences.

We don’t want you to be one of us. We just want you to stop talking long enough to listen to what we have to say.

We don’t care how much money you have; what bothers us is how much money gets spent trying to influence the actions of elected office holders.

Modern class warfare isn’t between rich and poor. It’s between the political class and the rest of us.

The men who first gathered to craft a democratic republic that became the United States were, largely, landed gentry far more affluent than their peers. Since then, the wealth gulf between those who govern and those governed has done nothing but widen. States like Maine can still attempt to elect people of modest means to citizen legislatures, but Congress and the White House have always been inhabited by an elite class who gained privilege through their wealth.

That’s not new, and it’s not the problem. The infusion of billions of dollars to fund special-interest advocacy by party machines is.

The appeal of an unenrolled U.S. senator from Maine derives from the hope that he would provide the state and nation with an independent voice without fealty to party bosses and those who buy their favors.

A truly independent senator offers average Americans, betrayed by a two-party system, some hope for liberation from the partisan “us versus them” name-calling and serial electioneering that thwarts effective governance in Washington.

We don’t want more of the same cheap, diversionary chatter that reinforces schisms between Democrats and Republicans, thereby fortifying the power of those who profit by factionalism and government stagnation.

Instead, we want a truly independent representative — “elitist” or not — who will focus on substance rather than symbolism and acknowledge that the nation’s problems belong to all of us, rather than trying to pass them off as the fault of those bad guys across the aisle.

letters@timesrecord.com