(Image source: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN

ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY

His fans say he just might be able to seize victory in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But for those on the fence about Ron Paul, there’s one label the GOP presidential candidate can’t seem to get out from under.

RICHARD LAND, C-SPAN: “He’s an isolationist.”

DAVID GREGGORY, NBC: “...Ron Paul, who is an isolationist...”

SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS: “He’s well known for his positions on foreign policy that his critics term isolationist.”

Paul has called for the withdrawal of US troops not just from Iraq and Afghanistan -- but around the world. And in numerous debates he’s said there’s almost never a good reason to intervene overseas.

Fox News commentator Michael Meyers says Ron Paul just can’t cut it as commander-in-chief:
 

“You cannot be an isolationist in a 21st century global economy. We have military alliances and treaty obligations. We have trade agreements.”

But that’s where Paul supporters say his critics have it wrong: He’s not an isolationist, they say, but a non-interventionist. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer -- who himself has called Paul the dreaded I-word -- asked the candidate to explain.

REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): “An isolationist is a protectionist that builds walls around their country, they don’t like the trade, they don’t like to travel about the world, and they like to put sanctions on different countries. … And yet, the opposite is what we believe in, we believe Nixon did the right thing by opening up trade doors with China... So non-intervention is quite a bit different since what the founders advised was to get along with people, trade with people, and to practice diplomacy, rather than having this militancy of telling people what to do and how to run the world and building walls around our own country.”

In fact Paul says he just might be the strongest on national defense in the field. And by national defense -- he means -- not spending too much money on INTERnational defense. Daily Caller columnist Jack Hunter tells Fox Business, it’s a conversation worth having, and critics are over-simplifying it.

NAPOLITANO: “Let me pose this situation to you. We wake up one morning there is a Chinese fleet in New York harbor. Ron Paul is president. What would he do? Look the other way?”
HUNTER: “…That is a common misperception. Ron Paul believes that the strong national defense. In fact his budget provides for a military four times the size of China. We’re talking about a large strong national defense, but the question is when you use it, how often do you use it, does it make sense when you use it?”

But in something of a side story: Over the weekend former Ron Paul staffer Eric Dondero penned an op-ed for Right Wing News -- defending him against a number of other charges floating around the blogosphere -- including those that suggest he’s a racist or anti-Semite.

Dondero denied Paul was any of those -- but DID say his former boss was, in fact, an isolationist.

“He denies this charge vociferously. But I can tell you straight out, I had countless arguments/discussions with him over his personal views. For example, he strenuously does not believe the United States had any business getting involved in fighting Hitler in WWII. He expressed to me countless times, that ‘saving the Jews,’ was absolutely none of our business.”

In response, The Weekly Standard reports, Paul’s campaign manager is calling Dondero a quote “disgruntled former staffer... [who] should not be taken seriously.”