LDFLAGS problem

[Robin Becker]

After installing python 2.7.1 on a Freebsd 8.0 system with the normal configure 
make dance

./configure --prefix=$HOME/PYTHON --enable-unicode=ucs2
make
make install

I find that when I build extensions PIL, MySQLdb I'm getting errors related to a 
dangling ${LDFLAGS}

eg  MySQLdb

> running build_ext
> building '_mysql' extension
> creating build/temp.freebsd-7.0-RELEASE-i386-2.7
> gcc -pthread -fno-strict-aliasing -g -O2 -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -Dversion_info=(1,2,2,'final',0) -D__version__=1.2.2 -I/usr/local/include/mysql -I/home/rptlab/PYTHON/include/python2.7 -c _mysql.c -o build/temp.freebsd-7.0-RELEASE-i386-2.7/_mysql.o -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe
> gcc -pthread -shared ${LDFLAGS} build/temp.freebsd-7.0-RELEASE-i386-2.7/_mysql.o -L/usr/local/lib/mysql -lmysqlclient_r -lz -lcrypt -lm -o build/lib.freebsd-7.0-RELEASE-i386-2.7/_mysql.so
> gcc: ${LDFLAGS}: No such file or directory
> error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

where should I be looking to fix this problem?
-- 
Robin Becker