After getting a good nights sleep, and doing more research, it seems the problem is not scope-related, but ajax-related. The advice I have read suggests setting return values from within the ajax callback function, because of the asynchronous completion of the ajax function. So, I have attempted to apply the tooltip functions within the ajax callback, but without success. The ajax is returning it's values, but the tooltip is not being applied. Any advice welcome. Thanks!
$('a[href^=logmar]').queue(function(){ var args = $(this).attr("href").split('?')[1]; if(args.charAt(0) == "l") { var lm = args.substring(2, args.length); $.get("templates/templates.php", {'action': 'lm2sn', 'l' : lm }, function(response){ if(response.length > 0) { $(this).tooltip({ bodyHandler: function() { return response; }, showURL: false }); } }); } });