Writing in Salon, Dan Savage detailed his efforts to infiltrate the presidential campaign of Republican garden gnome Gary Bauer and infect him and his staff with the flu, possibly taking him out of the race. As part of his plan, Mr. Savage tried to pass Bauer a pen he had chewed on, then licked a variety of objects: doorknobs, staplers, telephones, computer keyboards. "Then I stood in the kitchen and licked the rims of all the clean coffee cups drying in the rack."

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