Why not create a little utility function?
>>> def pad(l, content, width):
... l.extend([content] * (width - len(l)))
... return l
...
>>> pad([1, 2], 0, 4)
[1, 2, 0, 0]
>>> pad([1, 2], 2, 4)
[1, 2, 2, 2]
>>> pad([1, 2], 0, 40)
[1, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
>>>