THE VIETNAM WAR has initiated "a lot of elbow jostling" among New York Democrats, one downstate party man explained recently, "and a good deal of the jostling has nothing to do with the issues."

With less than three months remaining until the first statewide delegate primary in New York's history, Democratic Congressmen, State Senators, assemblymen, county chairmen, and party hacks are asking themselves the agonizing question: do I stick with Lyndon Johnson or do I throw my support to Robert Kennedy? A handful a day is switching, and it appears that Kennedy will control slightly more than two-thirds of the state's 190 delegates to the Chicago convention. (McCarthy will be lucky if he gets any delegates at all.)

This is not a measure of anti-war sentiment in the state--probably nowhere near 70 per cent of New York's voters prefer Kennedy's Vietnam position to Johnson's. The New York primary is a local affair, and the popularity of local leaders determines the outcome.

The more than three million registered Democratic voters simply do not count for much in the June 18 delegate primary. In theory, they should control 188 of the 190 delegate votes--since they elect three delegates in each of the state's 41 Congressional districts and also choose the 300 state committeemen who then fill 65 more delegate seats when they meet in Albany. In theory, only the two seats given to national committeemen are pre-ordained. In practice, however, the delegation is being shaped right now in the proverbial back rooms.

Locals shift to Kennedy because of past allegiances, or because they believe Kennedy will be a more powerful force in this state for a longer time than Johnson. Locals who switch claim they are against the war, and indeed they may be. But when asked if they had previously thought of switching to McCarthy, they shrug and confess it was out of the question.

IF A POPULAR, powerful local transfers his allegiance to Kennedy, he is likely to carry his district with him, even if it is not a dovish district. The Eighth Congressional District in Queens Country is a perfect example. Queens, the eastern-most borough of New York City, is one of the few downstate counties which can be called a Johnson strong point. It has few of the Negroes and Puerto Ricans who tend to be Kennedy supporters, and Frank O'Connor--who is running LBJ's statewide campaign--is a favorite with the hometown voters. While Johnson is heavily favored to sweep the nine delegate seats of Queens' sixth, seventh, and ninth Congressional districts, he could lose the eighth. This is because the Congressman from the eighth, Ben Rosenthal, is a dove--"as out of place here as Fulbright is in Arkansas," noted one observer. Rosenthal and his supporters can put up a delegate slate which his prestige as a popular incumbent could well carry to victory.

Kennedy, of course, has several powerful friends at the local level. Nassau County Chairman Jack English sways voters living in a densely-populated Long Island suburb of New York City, and Joseph E. Crangle wields the same kind of power over Erie County (including Buffalo). Although they have not officially supported Kennedy, they do not hide their feelings. A strong county chairman has unmatched influence because he--not a United States Senator or Governor--directly controls the lower-level patronage and favor-dispensation which remain the crux of American politics even when the nation is at war.

It is to Kennedy's advantage to have the state primary broken into 41 playlets, each with its own cast of characters, because he probably could not get two-thirds of the vote in an issue-oriented statewide campaign. A charismatic state figure stumping for the President could conceivably excite the masses in the state to vote against the local Kennedy machinery. Fortunately for Kennedy, there are no pro-Johnson Democrats in the state with that kind of appeal. Frank O'Connor, who lost badly to incumbent Nelson Rockefeller in the 1966 gubernatorial race, is not an exciting man. Averell Harriman, former governor, is of a by-gone era. Joseph Resnick, running as an LBJ-supporter in the statewide primary for United States Senator, has little to recommend him but his heavy campaign spending.

Just as Kennedy could not get two-thirds of the vote in a campaign on the issues, he will have trouble getting more than two-thirds in a campaign based on local strength. This may seem surprising. After all, it is exactly this smoke-filled room influence in which Kennedy is supposed to be so superior to McCarthy. Yet he cannot unite his adopted state behind him. For a nationally prominent politician, Kennedy has too many gaps in his state machinery.

Ever since he was burnt in 1966 when he vigorously supported Samuel Silverman for New York County surrogate and barely won, Kennedy has been reluctant to be pushy in state politics. He played no part at all in choosing a 1966 gubernatorial candidate, thus handing the nomination to O'Connor--a man who is too party-ish to suit the Kennedy style.

Kennedy will campaign vigorously in New York in the two weeks between the California primary and the New York vote. But there are too many miles of terrain in New York and too many millions of voters for even Kennedy to do in this state what McCarthy did in New Hampshire. The question is whether Kennedy can do what it is fashionable to claim McCarthy cannot do--win the delegates in the back rooms.