jQuery UI Multicolumn Autocomplete

Trying to make the autocomplete plugin work with multiple columns.

by salt

HTML

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.11.2/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css">
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.11.2/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
<div style="margin:10px 10px;padding:8px;width:400px;" class="ui-widget ui-widget-content ui-corner-all">
    <div style="margin:0 0 14px 0; font-size:.7em;">An example of a 3 column autocomplete control.</div>
    <div style="margin:0 0 4px 4px;">Find a city</div>
    <!-- This is the input control that gets turned into the jquery ui widget -->
    <input id="search" type="text" style="padding:2px;font-size:.8em;width:300px;" />
    <div style="font-size:0.7em;color:#999;">Makes use of the web service at <a href="http://geonames.org">geonames.org</a>
    </div>
    <div style="margin:20px 0 0 0;"> <span id="results" style="color:#68a;"></span>

    </div>
</div>

CSS

.ui-autocomplete-loading {
    background: white url('http://jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/images/ui-anim_basic_16x16.gif') right center no-repeat;
}

JavaScript

/*
 * jQuery UI Multicolumn Autocomplete Widget Plugin 2.1
 * Copyright (c) 2012-2014 Mark Harmon
 *
 * Depends:
 * - jQuery UI Autocomplete widget
 *
 * Dual licensed under the MIT and GPL licenses:
 * http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php
 * http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
 */
$.widget('custom.mcautocomplete', $.ui.autocomplete, {
    _create: function () {
        this._super();
        this.widget().menu("option", "items", "> :not(.ui-widget-header)");
    },
    _renderMenu: function (ul, items) {
        var self = this,
            thead;
        if (this.options.showHeader) {
            table = $('<div class="ui-widget-header" style="width:100%"></div>');
            $.each(this.options.columns, function (index, item) {
                table.append('<span style="padding:0 4px;float:left;width:' + item.width + ';">' + item.name + '</span>');
            });
            table.append('<div style="clear: both;"></div>');
            ul.append(table);
        }
        $.each(items, function (index, item) {
            self._renderItem(ul, item);
        });
    },
    _renderItem: function (ul, item) {
        var t = '',
            result = '';
        $.each(this.options.columns, function (index, column) {
            t += '<span style="padding:0 4px;float:left;width:' + column.width + ';">' + item[column.valueField ? column.valueField : index] + '</span>'
        });
        result = $('<li></li>')
            .data('ui-autocomplete-item', item)
            .append('<a class="mcacAnchor">' + t + '<div style="clear: both;"></div></a>')
            .appendTo(ul);
        return result;
    }
});


// Sets up the multicolumn autocomplete widget.
$("#search").mcautocomplete({
    // These next two options are what this plugin adds to the autocomplete widget.
    showHeader: true,
    columns: [{
        name: 'City',
        width: '150px',
        valueField: 'name'
    }, {
        name: 'State',
        width: '120px',
       ...