"I ain't going anywhere," the chairman said. (ap photo)

Happening now in Colorado: RNC chairman Michael Steele is laughing off the quarterly calls for his resignation, saying it's hard to be a Republican in Maryland, and vowing to rock on.

From Domenico Montanaro of NBC News' extraordinarily helpful rough transcript of Steele's remarks to the Colorado Republican Party's "Victory" event:

"Look, every time something happens, people go - oh, you should step down, step down. Well the reality of it is that's not happening so stop the noise on that," Steele said.

He also attempted to address his recent remarks on Afghanistan -- that it was a war of "Obama's choosing" and criticizing the troop surge.

"In terms of Afghanistan and all of that - let me be very clear. Absolutely, without equivocation, or doubt or hesitation - I'm foursquare, a thousand percent with our troops on the ground. My goodness, do not leave these young men and women without the resources they need. And that should have been very, very clear - that I think it's important for us to recognize that this war on terrorism was brought to our shores and we must fight it. We must fight it. And we will fight it and we will win it, because that's what the resolve of the American people is on this. That's part of that exceptionalism again that we bring to this."

Thanks for clearing that up.