.click not working for ie7 & 8

.click not working for ie7 & 8

I have a dead simple .click() event setup for a div with the id of nextLink. This works perfectly in all the "real" browsers. But I can't even get an alert to fire from IE7 & 8.

I have whittled the code down to the simplest it can be to illustrate the problem. 

$('#nextLink').click(function () {
  alert("nextLink here");
});

<div id="nextLink">Next</div>

I have seen this problem on many a post, but never found an answer to the problem in this basic form. I have tried both .mouseup and mousedown, but to no avail.

Any thoughts on how to get this wired up?

Thanks!