style select option using css

Question

I'm trying to style a select option list using CSS. I want more padding between the times of the list because the seem squashed together. I've tried adding padding to the option element, but this doesn't seem to work. ANy ideas?

Here's my code

HTML

<select name="secondSelect[]" id='second' multiple='multiple' size='8' >
   <option value="1" style="padding: 10px;">Option a 1</option>
   <option value="2" SELECTED >Option b 2(sel)</option>
   <option value="3">Option c 3</option>
   <option value="4" SELECTED >Option d 4 (sel)</option>
   <option value="5">Option e 5</option>
   <option value="6">Option f 6</option>
   <option value="7">Option g 7</option>
   <option value="8">Option h 8</option>
   <option value="9">Option i 9</option>
   <option value="10" SELECTED >Option l 10 (sel)</option>
</select>​

CSS

.ms2side__div select {
    width: 220px;
    float: left;
    border: 1px solid #BFBFBF;
    background: white;
    font-size: 12px;
    color: #9D9D9D;
    font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
    padding: 10px;
    line-height: 25px;
}​

http://jsfiddle.net/noscirre/GUdhc/

Answer 1

you can try <optgroup> tag:

<optgroup>
        <option value="1">Option a 1</option> 
</optgroup>

optgroup {
   padding: 5px 0px
}

http://jsfiddle.net/GUdhc/5/