You can find python26 in EPEL [1] or follow this guide [2] to setup 2.7. This will install 2.6 or 2.7 in parallel, do not set these by default as it will break yum.

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Python26

[2] http://villaroad.com/2010/10/rolling-python-2-6-2-on-centos-...