Adding padding to the category links in sidebar

Hello,
I'm trying to add a little padding to the links in the category sidebar but I can't understand why it won't work! It seems that I can add padding left and right but not top and bottom.

I notice that in the html these links are marked up as a table, has this got something to do with it? I can style the contact us and site map links further down fine, but not the category links.

i've tried all sorts of things but can't add top or bottom padding to the links.

here's a link to the site.
(the yellow boxes are only there for myself, so that I can see what I'm targeting... i intend to turn them off.)

Please help someone, this is driving me crackers!

Thanks,
Michael

Here's one way:

a.category-top {line-height: 2em;}

perfect!

.....I've wasted half a day trying to do that, nearly went crazy!

thanks again,
Michael

Be aware that that will space out long multi-line category names the same as different category names. If you want to distinguish long names by keeping them together, you need some other styling or coding. There are mods like Categories Dressing that will facilitate that and much more, or you can make
a.category-top {display: block;}
and be able to control padding and margins precisely. There are other issues of spacing that arise when you do that, but they can be handled with the right CSS.