Washington ? The conservative vs. moderate split threatening to rupture the Republican Party played out across the airwaves Sunday, with Colin Powell and Tom Ridge denouncing shrill and judgmental voices they say are steering the GOP too far right.

At stake is the GOP’s status as a major party, Powell and Ridge suggested.

“I believe we should build on the base because the nation needs two parties, two parties de-bating each other. But what we have to do is debate and define who we are and what we are and not just listen to dictates that come down from the right wing of the party,” said Powell, the nation’s top military officer under President George H.W. Bush and later secretary of state for President George W. Bush.

Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh have openly mocked Powell as a Republican in name only, citing his endorsement of Democrat Barack Obama over Republican John McCain in last year’s presidential race.

Powell reaffirmed that he is a solid Republican and said the GOP must be more inclusive or risk giving Democrats and independents the chance to scoop up disaffected moderate Republicans. He detailed his presidential voting history — yes to GOP nominees Ronald Reagan through the younger Bush, but yes also to Democrats John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter.

“If we don’t reach out more, the party is going to be sitting on a very, very narrow base. You can only do two things with a base. You can sit on it and watch the world go by, or you can build on the base,” Powell said.

Fellow GOP moderate Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor and homeland security secretary under George W. Bush, said if the GOP wants “to restore itself, not as a regional party, but as a national party, we have to be far less judgmental about disagreements within the party and far more judgmental about our disagreement with our friends on the other side of the aisle.”

Cheney, defense secretary when Army Gen. Powell was Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman during the Gulf War in 1991, has made clear that he would rather follow broadcaster Limbaugh than Powell into political battle over the GOP’s future. “I didn’t know he was still a Republican,” Cheney said in a television interview two weeks ago.

Limbaugh has called Powell “just another liberal,” said he should become a Democrat and charged that Powell endorsed Obama based on race. Both Powell and Obama are black.

In remarks to business leaders in Boston this past week, Powell took on such high-profile criticism, saying, “I may be out of their version of the Republican Party, but there’s another version of the Republican Party waiting to emerge once again.”