Texas Gov. Rick Perry enjoys comparing himself to Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow but it appears Perry will never reach the end zone. In fact, he'll need to kneel and pray for a miracle while backed up against his own goal line.

As the Iowa caucus results roll in, Perry is staring up from the bottom of a well. It appears he's mired in fifth place. Even the country folks in rural Iowa had trouble voting for a part-time farmer, full-time politician and God-fearing man, and that spells trouble for the Texas governor as he tries to change his address to Washington, D.C.

With a majority of returns in, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum ran neck and neck for the win with Ron Paul on their tail. Newt Gingrich ran a distant fourth.

Fifth place is not what Perry hoped for. He quietly discussed a competitive third as an opportunity to move on to New Hampshire, but fifth? At least he's beating Michele Bachman — that's a victory considering she's been running for years compared to Perry's five months.

Around 11 p.m. Tuesday night, Perry told supporters in Des Moines he plans to re-assess his presidential campaign after his dismal showing.

“With the voters’ decision tonight, I’ve decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight’s caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race,” Perry said.

Perry had previously said he would skip New Hampshire, where the first-in-the-nation presidential primary will be held on Jan. 10, and take his campaign directly to South Carolina, where he hoped to do better.

Online politics

In our socially connected online world, political junkies wet their pants at the live online assets available to them. You can sit in your living room in your pj's no less — and feel like you were sitting in a caucus yourself.

WNYC provided this interactive map developed by Patchwork Nation. It updates automatically, just scroll over a county to see who won.

On a larger scale, even Google jumped into the fray with one of the better live update maps. If you're a glutton for political punishment, you can sit and stare at maps like these while you watch CNN (ouch — dude you need a life).

For a different take, the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in Florida, highlighted an insiders perspective on covering the Iowa caucuses from a veteran journalist who's been there.

Perry is winning one poll — YouTube. Perry leads the video fray with the most views on his channel. It's not as entertaining as watching his out-takes but hey, folks seem to like it.

The Iowa results — while covered by the news nets as though we're electing a President —are rarely a good indication of who will will win (four years ago Mike Huckabee rocked the Iowa vote), but it they do provide a good culling of the candidates and right now Perry is being cut out of the herd.