Serious candidate vs the enthusiasm gap

I've been hearing for about a decade that there is an enthusiasm gap between the right and the left. And I've been hearing people say that there should be a Colbert/Stewart ticket for at least half that time.
If the Bush administration did anything good, it proved that the left can not close the enthusiasm gap with anger the way the right can. Last years Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear seemed to support my theory that the left could close the gap with wit.
Fast Forward and I'm running for Congress with a witty campaign, as a Democrat this time, and the enthusiasm is less than when I ran as a write-in candidate. Part of it is because it is so early on. But another part of it is this thing I'm getting from Democrats that I'm not serious enough for them.
It's not the content of my message. It's the fact that I'm having fun while doing it. But I don't understand why that is. If you look at the political movies put out by (liberal) Hollywood you would thing that the left would jump at the chance to get behind a fun candidate.
It's not even that I expect everyone to swoon and fall in love with me because I'm vaguely leftist and thumbing my nose at the traditional campaign. But I'm not even admired as an oddity. I'm not even something to send to friends 'look at this kook'.
The tea party is electing my outraged counterpart but I'm being told that my base would rather support someone who can buy their way into office than support me. To which I wonder: Who's the one not being serious now? We're in SWMO only someone boldly different will be able to end the Republican dominance.

If you follow my campaigns FaceBook page you've heard that there is talk of drafting me to run for State Legislature instead of US Congress. And I realize my questioning of the wisdom of that may sound as if I am completely opposed to the idea. So let me put this in concrete terms:

I will be glad to run for State Legislature if the people suggesting this transition rally a staff for me. Believe it or not I have a strategy for running for Congress and as long-shot-y it is, many of the components are not scale-able. then again...

I apologize if this sounds cranky . Pandora has hit that clingy toddler phase and my brain is a bit fried. But I wanted to put out where I am at with this because I want as much input as I can on this.