Your selector looks for the descendant of a input:radio[name=cols]
element that has the id of newcol
(well the value of that variable).
Try this instead (since you’re selecting by ID anyway):
$('#' + newcol).prop('checked',true);
Here is a demo: http://jsfiddle.net/jasper/n8CdM/1/
Also, as of jQuery 1.6 the perferred method of altering a property is .prop()
: http://api.jquery.com/prop