evolution, of Heinlein's own opinions, and have earned him both lavish praise and a degree of criticism. He has also been accused of contradicting himself on various philosophical questions. Brian Doherty cites William Patterson, saying that the best way to gain an understanding of Heinlein is as a "full-service iconoclast, the unique individual who decides that things do not have to be, and won't continue, as they are". He says this vision is "at the heart of Heinlein, science fiction, libertarianism, and America. Heinlein imagined how everything about the human world, from our sexual mores to our religion to our automobiles to our government to our plans for cultural survival, might be flawed, even fatally so." The critic Elizabeth Anne Hull, for her part, has praised Heinlein for his interest in exploring fundamental life questions, especially questions about "political power—our responsibilities to one another" and about "personal freedom, particularly sexual freedom". Edward R. Murrow hosted a series on CBS Radio called This I Believe, which solicited an entry from Heinlein in 1952. Titled "Our Noble, Essential Decency", it is probably the most enduring and popular of the title. In it, Heinlein broke with the normal trends, stating that he believed in his neighbors (some of whom he named and described), community, and towns across America that share the same sense of good will and intentions as his own, going on to apply this same philosophy to the US, and humanity in general. Politics Heinlein's political positions shifted throughout his life. Heinlein's early political leanings were liberal. In 1934, he worked actively for the Democratic campaign of Upton Sinclair for Governor of California. After Sinclair lost, Heinlein became an anti-Communist Democratic activist. He made an unsuccessful bid for a California State Assembly seat in 1938. Heinlein's first novel, For Us, the Living (written 1939), consists largely of speeches advocating the Social Credit philosophy, and the early story "Misfit" (1939) deals with an organization—"The Cosmic Construction Corps"—that seems to be Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps translated into outer space. Of this time in his life, Heinlein later said: Heinlein's fiction of the 1940s and 1950s, however, began to espouse conservative views. After 1945, he came to believe that a strong world government was the only way to avoid mutual nuclear annihilation. His 1949 novel Space Cadet describes a future scenario where a military-controlled global government enforces world peace. Heinlein ceased considering