Try out Vim. It may take you a week to get used to it. Best thing I ever did was finally get started on Vim. Once I got used to it I was very happy. Google around for Vim tutorials. There is a #VIM channel on freenode I believe. There is also a VIM mailing list that is very helpful. You won't need these for long. Once you get used to it and think you've learned all you can you find out there's even more stuff you can do with it.
If you wanna try Emacs go for it. You don't need an IDE for python. In the very beginning of writing python I wrote on windows using notepad and Linux using Gedit. While Gedit was better it was nothing compared to Vim. My favorite thing to do is open vim one one document I'm working on, then split the screen horizonatally for each other relevent document I'm working on. I can thing split it vertically as well. I also know that once you have saved your python document in vim you can test out your code by typing :!python % and it invokes the python interpreter in a shell for that script. Then when the program is done it returns to Vim. It also indents and colors syntax for my other languages as well: C/Java/HTML/CSS. So it's something that you use for life once you get that feeling of enlightenment that comes from never having to remove your hands from the keyboard.
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