vertical list

please refer to http://sudhakargolakaram.co.in/verticallist.html

my question is about the width of the link for each of the list items

the list items have different words so the width of the words are different, when the mouse moves on individual links the hyperlink cursor appears based on the length of each link, for this i have given

#list1 ul li a {
padding: 10px 0 20px 0;
}

however this is being ignored and

#list1 ul li {
padding: 10px 0 20px 0;
}

is being interpretted, in this case since i have links in the list items i guess #list1 ul li a{} should be interpretted correct or is
#list1 ul li {} only interpretted, ultimately what i want is the hyperlink cursor should appear based on the width of an individual link

please advice

thanks