YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING TO GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.

The New York Times says big business is running scared after Eric Cantor's loss this week:

[Cantor's] loss at the hands of David Brat, a Tea Party-inspired economics professor who campaigned on throwing corrupt Wall Street bankers in jail, railed against crony capitalism and insisted that immigration reform would only reward lawbreakers, spurred business leaders to mobilize to preserve their clout in Congress. Already uneasy over what they see as an especially hostile strain of anticorporate populism growing within the conservative movement, and threatening the traditional corporate-friendly centers of power inside the Republican Party, many businesses fear the loss of some of their strongest champions on Capitol Hill.

And the Washington Examiner's Timothy Carney thinks Cantor's loss might create the opportunity for the GOP to become the "people's party":

Eric Cantor's single largest source of campaign contributions was Blackstone Group, the high-rolling financial titan in Midtown Manhattan.

Dave Brat's largest source of campaign cash was Baugh Auto Body on West Broad Street in Richmond.

Brat's stunning landslide win over Cantor in the June 10 primary gives Republicans the opportunity to change from being the party of Blackstone to the party of Baugh.

And yesterday, at the Iowa GOP convention, tea party hero and possible Republican 2016 presidential frontrunner Rand Paul echoed this sentiment, as Breitbart reports:

On Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that Republicans cannot credibility be for austerity, less government spending, and a "tough love" approach on welfare if they do not stand against crony capitalism and corporate welfare.

Speaking at the Iowa GOP convention, Paul said that Republicans cannot be for the "tough love" approach if "we're not willing to stop corporate welfare."

"We gotta stop and end all welfare to big business," Paul said. "It's crazy."

Wow! This really seems like a new Republican Party, doesn't it? So ... um ... what else was Rand Paul up to this weekend?

Leading lights of an anxious Republican establishment have journeyed to Utah's Deer Valley this weekend for the third annual retreat organized by Mitt Romney....

"This is the place where, I believe, the future of the party is really going to come out of," said Anthony Scaramucci, a New York hedge fund manager and former Romney fund-raising bundler....

The weekend drew dozens of such men and women, most of them veterans of Mr. Romney's formidable presidential finance team, which raised more money than any other in Republican history. In the donors' wake came many of the party's potential nominees for 2016, appearing to relish the opportunity to mingle with leading fund-raisers.

There was Mr. Paul, who met privately with 20 or so donors Friday night....

That was after Mr. Paul had a breakfast with what The Washington Post called "the Republican elite" on Friday morning.

So: did Rand denounce crony capitalism in his discussions with these high rollers? Or in his previous meeting with the Romney donor crowd this past April in Boston? Funny, there's no mention of that.

Also in attendance? The Democrats' Great Populist Hope, former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer:

For a Democrat toying with waging a presidential primary challenge against Hillary Rodham Clinton from the populist left, the exclusive confab of chief executives and Republican donors hosted by Mitt Romney is a most unlikely place to campaign.

But that's precisely what Brian Schweitzer did this week....

I particularly enjoyed reading about this exchange between the drill-baby-drill populist and one fat cat:

... Schweitzer appealed directly to one of the biggest GOP donors in the room, billionaire energy investor Harold Hamm.

"Harold, when you're done getting all the easy oil out of the bottom, what do you need to increase oil production?" Schweitzer asked.

"CO2!" Hamm replied.

These guys are such cut-ups.

Purge big money from politics? Not gonna happen. Not anytime soon.