[python] Python For loop get index

I am writing a simple Python for loop to prnt the current character in a string. However, I could not get the index of the character. Here is what I have, does anyone know a good way to get the current index of the character in the loop?

 loopme = 'THIS IS A VERY LONG STRING WITH MANY MANY WORDS!'

 for w  in loopme:
    print "CURRENT WORD IS " + w + " AT CHARACTER " 

Do you want to iterate over characters or words?

For words, you'll have to split the words first, such as

for index, word in enumerate(loopme.split(" ")):
    print "CURRENT WORD IS", word, "AT INDEX", index

This prints the index of the word.

For the absolute character position you'd need something like

chars = 0
for index, word in enumerate(loopme.split(" ")):
    print "CURRENT WORD IS", word, "AT INDEX", index, "AND AT CHARACTER", chars
    chars += len(word) + 1