horizontalalignment respects leading spaces with left-alignment, ignores trailing spaces
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(8,6))
ax = fig.gca()
ax.plot([0,0],[-1,1],':')
for k in xrange(5):
spc = " "*k
ax.text(0.0,0.1*k,spc+"%d leading spaces"%k, ha='left')
ax.text(0.0,0.1*k,("%d trailing spaces"%k)+spc, ha='right')