Why is Huckabee Helping McCain?

Has there been some type of Faustian deal struck between John McCain and Mike Huckabee? The Huckster never wastes an opportunity to bash Romney and praise McCain. Is there a deal in the works?

Now, Huckabee suggests that all would be better if Romney would just step aside:

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (CNN) — White House hopeful Mike Huckabee denied the Republican presidential race had narrowed to two candidates, Mitt Romney and John McCain, telling journalists at an Alabama campaign stop Saturday that “if anybody ought to be quitting, it's Mitt Romney.”

“John McCain hasn't suggested I step aside. So if Mitt Romney's going to engage me, which he has, then I feel like the engagement is on,” said the former Arkansas governor.

“…If I'm ahead of him in places like Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, then he needs to step aside and let me in fact be that conservative alternative than he says we need.”

Romney’s campaign spent much of the early voting season attacking many of his opponents, including Huckabee. And Huckabee has been a fierce critic of the former Massachusetts governor, regularly criticizing him in presidential primary debates and on the campaign trail.

Huckabee may be ahead of Romney in some Bible Belt states, but he's still behind McCain in most of them. He doesn't have a prayer outside the South (and maybe Missouri), and every vote for him is equivilent to a vote for McCain. If there's going to be a candidate who can stop McCain, it won't be Huckabee.