Weighing in on the Chicago teachers strike, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney adopts a revealing frame: "We ought to put the kids first in this country, and the teachers union goes behind," Romney told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt. "I’m with the kids, and I’m with their parents, and I’m not with the teachers’ union. We need to pick our side."

It's not simply the us-against-them swagger or the anti-union sentiment that stands out about this quote—that's standard Republican fare—but the way Romney frames everything as a competition in which if one side wins, the other side must lose. He's just not interested in a solution in which both the kids and the teachers win. He approaches this teachers strike with the same winner take all attitude with which he ran Bain Capital.

Of course, that's not the way the real world works. Stagnant wages, overcrowded classrooms, and relentless vilification can't help but drive qualified teachers away from the profession. And under that scenario everybody loses. Everybody, that is, except the politicians seeking electoral gain by exploiting a labor dispute they know little about.