Actually, he was, but no one took him that seriously when he did shit like call for the execution of 5 innocent black teens or got sued for housing violations by the Nixon Administration. (Seriously, how much of a racist do you have to be for Richard Nixon to say, "Wait a minute, man!"
But the only thing that separated him from the other 10 Republicans who might have made fairly competent presidents was his willingness to openly say racist shit like 'Obama was born in Kenya" and "Mexicans are rapists".
Sadly, not enough Republicans stood up and said, "This isn't who we are!"