nope, I tried both:
Code:
  and  
...I discovered that it had something to do with the font size - anything below 15 would omit the space directly preceding a link tag (but not the one following it), though any size above 15 preserved the spaces. I didn't want to raise my font size above 15, so what I did is just make a new CSS class where the text was white (the background of the site is white) & put:
Code:
<span class='linkSpacer'>...</span>
before the links. It's a hack, but it works!