And neither does his campaign staff.

In an interview Wednesday, McCain was asked how many houses he and his wife own. His response:

I think — I’ll have my staff get to you.

Well, according to his staff, they own “at least four.” At least? How could someone not know how many homes they own? How many homes would you have to own in order to start losing track of them? Newsweek estimated this summer that the McCains own at least seven properties.

Remember that in 2004 the Bush campaign blasted John Kerry and his wife for owning five homes. And a few days earlier, McCain said his threshold for considering someone rich is $5 million.

Of course, McCain got rich the old fashioned way — he married it.

UPDATE: The McCain camp is responding to this gaffe in an, um, creative way. According to McCain spokesman Brian Rogers it doesn’t matter how many homes McCain owns now, because “This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison.”

Remember when Joe Biden made fun of Rudy Giuliani because every sentence of his contained a noun, a verb, and 9/11? McCain is making his sentences almost the same way: noun verb P.O.W.

UPDATE 2: Politico now reports that the McCains own at least eight homes, and five of them were purchased in the last four years. Not only that, but the McCains increased their budget for “household employees” to $273,000 in 2007, according to their tax returns — more each year for servants than the median sales price for a home in the US ($215,000).