autocomplete doesn't work on 2nd match to jquery selector

i'm using autocomplete on a search form that is displayed on the header and footer of my page and i use a single select to add autocomplete to it. i had to wrap the $().ac code in an $().each(...) call to fix. here is my working code sample:

	$('.contentSearchForm .searchField').each(function(index, el) {
		var ac = $(el).autocomplete({
			source: function(request, response) {
				RequestManager.send("Content.search", {query:request.term}, function(data) {
					var a = [];
					for (var i=0; i<data.items.length; i++) {
						a.push(data.items[i]);
					}
					response(a);
				});
			},
			focus: function(event, ui) {
				//don't render focus
				return false;
			},
			select: function(event, ui) {
				window.location.href = "/content/View?id=" + ui.item.id;
				return false;
			}
		}).data("autocomplete");
		if (ac) {
			ac._renderItem = function( ul, item ) {
				return $( "<li class=\\"ui-ac-content\\">" )
					.data( "item.autocomplete", item )
					.append( '<a><div class="topic">'
						+ item.topic + '</div><div class="title">'
						+ item.title + '</div><div class="clearboth"></div></a>' )
					.appendTo( ul );
			};
		}
	});

the issue i had was that the rendering was a bunch of empty tiny (8px?) lines with no text. there's a chance its actually related to the ._renderItem portion. maybe making this a parameter to the autocomplete call would have fixed this.

also notice the "if (ac)..." portion. if the selector matched 0 items, it would fail there. i basically modified some code from the example page.