John McCain has a list of potential running mates, one with approximately 20 names on it, but it will take “weeks if not months” to pare the thing down.

Translation: Until he knows who he’s running against.

The Arizona senator said of the not-so-short short list:

“It’s not an unusual thing. You put the list together and then you just could do a cursory kind of a look that I guess you could do on Google.”

We’re cracking ourselves up imagining John McCain, kicking back at home after a long day at the office, watching some TV and googling Tom Ridge.

The GOP nominee-in-waiting said he hopes to name his running mate before the party’s convention in September. Umm, obviously? Unless he forgets?

In 2004, Sen. John Kerry announced his selection of Sen. John Edwards in early July — more than six weeks before the Democratic convention.

But McCain says he does not want to rush the process, hoping to avoid what he said were mistakes past nominees had made in choosing a V.P.

Specifically, he singled out George H.W. Bush’s selection of former Sen. Dan Quayle, who had “not been briefed and prepared for some of the questions.”

“I’m a great friend of Dan Quayle’s and I think he was a fine senator,” John McCain said, probably wishing he could take it back as soon as he opened his mouth.

“I just think that it was, you know, a lot of people in retrospect would have thought maybe the process should have been … I just think you have to have a measured process, make sure that you have taken every, all the factors into consideration and then decide.”

Regardless of how long it will take, you can your bottom dollar that he picks a true patriot who conforms to the general John McCain campaign theme.

That, or he taps as his running mate a trusty ol’ standby … rage.