Capital of a traditionally highly centralized country, Bogotá is the theatre of the essentials of national political life. However, its 15% of the national electorate tends to show a particular electoral behavior, at odd with the way the rest of the country votes. Bogotanos are more educated, richer, and better informed about political life than their fellow citizens, as is often the case in large cities. In this article, we will show that Bogota's exceptionalism in electoral matters is not defined by a particular and continuous tendency, but has manifested itself in different sorts of behaviors at various stages. On the other hand, we will show that these stages ended up opening the way to the same kind of phenomena in national political life with a certain lag in time. In this way, the Bogota particular way of voting does not translate into an immovable urban/rural cleavage that would be maintained over time, it is rather a laboratory for trends that are usually transferred to national politics, passing first to the other big cities, and then to the whole country.