python -V make sure that is a capital V
If you are less than 2.6 then you need to install a newer version of Python but don't worry it's easy.
First off you need to recognize yum’s dependency on Python 2.4. Simply replacing this will break your passing semblance of a package manager. We will be using this later so not breaking is the preferred path. Python versions can live in relative harmony together. Download the Python source and untar it to some directory. I use /opt or ~/source for all of my non-native additions. You can choose whatever you want.
cd /opt
wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.3/Python-2.7.3.tgz
tar -xf Python-2.7.1.tgz
cd Python-2.7.1
yum install gcc
./configure
make
make altinstall
The altinstall part is key, as it will resist installing the binary to the default /usr/bin/python path, overriding the needed 2.4 version of Python. On my CentOS installation it put it in /usr/local/bin/python2.7. Now you have a fully functional installation of Python residing happily on your system. It should be accessible by using python2.7 wherever you use python.
wget http://nodejs.tchol.org/repocfg/el/nodejs-stable-release.noarch.rpm
yum localinstall --nogpgcheck nodejs-stable-release.noarch.rpm
yum install nodejs-compat-symlinks npm
rm nodejs-stable-release.noarch.rpm
If the following two commands work then you are good to go
node --version
npm --version