Tea Party vogue, the GOP strikes another pose — just like the last one.

While Democrats sit stunned that this play took two weeks of planning, many in GOP leadership call this move a bridge — a way to show the rank and file that they will fight, but a clean debt limit vote is the only real way out of this mess. Top Republicans circled the floor Monday night to see if they had the support to pass this bill. Things did not look terribly promising, according to several sources in the process.

And just like that, the House Republican Conference that vowed to avoid fiscal fights and focus on unifying issues finds itself enmeshed in the throes of a mini-crisis. No one believes the federal government runs the risk of defaulting on its debt — and that makes this fight even more telling. Even when Republicans have removed default from the equation, they still cannot help fighting.

The decision by Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy to move forward with this plan was dictated by a fractured Republican conference that declined to coalesce around anything else. After weeks of trying, top Republicans discovered the party couldn’t pass any debt ceiling without Democratic support. The GOP had a long menu of items for its choosing, including pairing a debt limit increase with the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, changes to Obamacare and a nine-month patch to the Medicare reimbursement rate for doctors. It mattered precious little that most of these proposals would’ve died in the Senate.

More: House GOP Rolls Dice on Debt Limit - Jake Sherman and Ginger Gibson