Humor is an excellent method for breaking through barriers. When people are laughing with your, it is harder for them to say "no" and keep their defenses up. As important as humor is the image: Projected confidence, positive expectation. You are, after all, presumably, the one who knows something about politics. Otherwise, how did you get to be the "chief agitator" for your state? Thus, when a person such as the state chair tells the potential candidates that what they are doing is important, it means something.