It's a set of guiding principles. But you can either be pragmatic, go for the good rather than the perfect and make continuous small steps in the direction of your goals. Or you can sit back and refuse to vote for anything that isn't a pure manifestation of your utopia. Neither approach, IMO, is inherently better that the other. The latter rarely get anything done, while for the former, I've seen some examples of securing small, rather than big steps in the wrong direction being touted as successes.

Pragmatism. The realization that taxes can be too low or too high, or that we cold be spending too much or not enough, or that the conflict isn't between too much or not enough regulation but between good and bad regulation.