how to make sure select option text align in the center in IE?

The following CSS works in FF, but not in IE(at least 8.0), how can I make sure that the text align in the center for IE8.0? Thanks!!!

select, option {
    text-align: center;
}

Solution 1:

Unfortunately, you can't change the alignment of SELECT items in IE, although it surprises me that even IE 8 keeps this bad habit.

Solution 2:

Given that this is not possible in IE, I think you would have to resort to:

1. Implementing your own SELECT widgets. There are many JS libraries that do this, mostly because SELECT inputs are hard to style.

2. Insert the appropriate whitespace in front of the smaller options.

Edit: looks like whitespace doesn't work, but HTML space does:

<SELECT>
   <OPTION>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;SMALL</OPTION>
   <OPTION>&nbsp;&nbsp;LARGER</OPTION>
</SELECT>

That's quite a hack...