Le race card. Le race card. Toujours le race card.

Todd brings an NBC News crew down to Louisiana to find out why Mary Landrieu is in so much trouble and goes to the horse’s mouth from the answer. And Landrieu offers two reasons. One is sensible; the other…probably not a good idea.

“I’ll be very, very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans,” she says. “It’s been a difficult time for the president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader.”

That after noting that Obama shut down all oil exploration in the deepwater Gulf for six months after the Macondo spill, costing thousands of Louisianans jobs for absolutely no reason other than his own ignorance and ideological pique.

No mention whatsoever of the fact Obama sent his thugs from Eric Holder’s Justice Department down here to stop school choice, or that he sued Louisiana for the crime of not registering welfare recipients to vote fast enough. Or that he’s a gun-grabber and Louisiana’s commitment to our 2nd Amendment rights is absolute, or that this is an intensely pro-life state and Obama is a fan not just of abortion but of infanticide. Or that his idiotic EPA global warming regulations would devastate this state’s economy. Or any of the other policy reasons why Louisiana would regard Obama as the worst possible president.

Nope. Has to be racism. And it’s not just Louisiana – the whole South is full of racists who hate Obama just because of the color of his skin.

Not to mention there’s a War On Women card flopped down as well.

Remember that James Carville/Stan Greenberg poll of 1,000 white likely voters in Louisiana which had Landrieu at 25 percent with the white vote in the state? Do you think this is more likely to generate white support than not, or less likely?

Yes, that’s what we think as well.

Landrieu might as well have doused herself with gasoline and lit a match. There is simply no way she can win the election now. That 25 percent is a high-end number now. And she needs the better part of a third of the white vote to get to 50 percent under the best of circumstances.

UPDATE: It took no time for Gov. Bobby Jindal to pop off about this one…

“Senator Landrieu’s comments are remarkably divisive. She appears to be living in a different century.”